One of the freshmen—or “first years”, as they were beginning to be known—was accused by another first year of sexual assault and harassment. In the hot-house political environment at the time—product of the Thomas/Hill hearings, which revolved around workplace sexual harassment—these were serious allegations.

The young woman making the claim against the freshman said that he had visited her in her dorm-room around lunchtime one day during Orientation Week, and had “forcibly tried to kiss” her. She had rebuffed him, told him he was being “selfish”, after which he had left, without further incident.

This was the sexual assault allegation.

The young woman also claimed that the freshman had then started to harass her via electronic mail, in the days and weeks after. She claimed he had sent her “obscene messages”, which she had purged from her e-mail account, as she hadn’t wanted any of that “filth” on her computer.

This was the sexual harassment allegation.

The young woman said she wanted to “protect” the Dartmouth campus—and the other women at Dartmouth College—from the danger that the freshman represented. This was why she was reporting this incident three weeks after it allegedly took place.

The accused freshman, being unsophisticated, went through the disciplinary channels of Dartmouth College without contacting attorneys or even his parents. He was confident that the allegations would be shown to be lies—because he knew they were lies.

More to the point, he could prove that they were lies.

The young woman claimed she had thrown away the obscene e-mail messages he had sent her. But the computer science department at Kiewit Hall—in charge of the e-mail servers—said that that wouldn’t be a problem. This was 1991—few people had e-mail, and fewer still realized e-mails can never really be thrown away.

The techs at Kiewit duly looked through all of the e-mails the freshman had sent—as well as all of the e-mails the first year woman had received: None were obscene. In fact, there was only one e-mail between them: From when the first year woman had taught the freshman how to use the Dartmouth e-mail system. The only word on the message was “test”.

As to the sexual assault allegation: The freshman produced witnesses—ironically all of them women—who confirmed that he could not have possibly been in the first year woman’s dorm room around lunchtime—when she claimed—because the freshman had been with them.

Nothing salacious in these encounters: One of these women the freshman had been with was a senior in charge of hiring for a dining hall job he was applying for. Another was a sophomore from down the hall in his dorm, with whom he had talked about earthquakes (she was from California) and how to use the campus computer network. Three other women also placed him in innocuous situations during the entire day of the alleged assault.

As the freshman produced unbiased witnesses who could absolutely confirm he had been elsewhere at the time of the alleged assault, the first year woman kept changing her story—until she claimed that the assault had happened after 8 o’clock at night: A time for which the freshman could not produce a witness for where he had been. (He claimed he had been at an Orientation Week event at Warner Bentley Theater—ironically, where a sexual harassment and assault awareness skit was being play-acted by seniors up on stage.)

However, the freshman was confident that it didn’t matter that he couldn’t produce witnesses who remembered him attending the performance at Bentley Theater: The first year woman had changed her version of the events so many times—and had been shown to be outright lying about the nonexistent obscene e-mails—that the freshman assumed that all the charges would be dismissed, when the disciplinary committee met.

The disciplinary committee, known as the COS, the Committee On Standards, was made up mostly of students—juniors and seniors, divided roughly equally between men and women—plus a smattering of faculty, and chaired by the Dean of the College.

When the entire set of circumstances was aired out, even the chair of the COS was openly skeptical about the first year woman’s story.

Nevertheless, the accused freshman was suspended for an entire academic year.

There was no evidence he had committed any crime or transgression—only the first year woman’s word. There was ample evidence that the first year woman was lying—she had lied about the e-mail messages, and the blatant changes in her story showed that she was lying about the alleged assault.

As the freshman said at the time: “Everything I said that could be proved true turned out to be true—and everything she said that could be proved to be a lie turned out to be a lie.”

Though she had made demonstrably false allegationgs, the first year woman was allowed to continue her stay at Dartmouth, without hinderance or prejudice.

The freshman had to leave Dartmouth. But since there were still four weeks left until the end of the academic term, the Committee On Standards allowed him to stay on campus until after exams were done.

So much for being a “danger” to the other women on campus.

He didn’t have family in the U.S.—or practically any money: He had spent all he had earned before arriving in Hanover on tuition, books and supplies. He didn’t even have a car—and even if he had had one, he had no place to go to.

But somehow, he talked his way into a job in Washington, D.C., where he moved to for a year, working as an office drone at a law firm. It was a scary time for him—he lived literally hand to mouth, during that year.

He returned to Dartmouth, after his suspension was over. It was not pleasant. He was actively ostracized, and on occasion, openly cat-called terrible names by some of his classmates. All sorts of insane rumors swirled around him—but fighting rumors is like fighting the tide: Impossible, not to mention pointlessly self-defeating.

He couldn’t leave Dartmouth—no school anywhere near as prestigious would accept him as a transfer student. Not even lower tiered schools would take him—he applied, and was rejected, even though he had the grades and the test scores.

So he sucked it up: He kept himself to himself—watched a hell of a lot of TV—took extra coursework to make up the time lost to the suspension, and managed to graduate with honors alongside the rest of his class, the Class of ‘95.

At the graduation ceremony, he shook Bill Clinton’s hand.

He never returned to Dartmouth College after that.

That’s a true story. It’s a story, of course, that happened to me.

Even at the time that it was happening, I realized it had all just been bad luck—no different from being run over by a bus: Bad luck that I had met this woman, bad luck that the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill issue was in the air, bad luck that any allegations of sexual assault or harassment—however absurd—would not only be taken seriously, but taken to the limit.

Just bad luck.

The reason the first year woman made the allegations against me—which only now, as a grown man with far more experience about other people’s pride, do I fully understand—was that the young woman had grown to hate me, after I had turned down her offer of sex.

We’d hooked up, of course, during Orientation Week. But once in her dorm-room (on a different night altogether from the night of my alleged assault), I’d given her some fake-noble reasons as to why we shouldn’t sleep together that night.

She’d accepted my demurral. But almost two weeks later—during which time I hadn’t called or e-mailed her—she spotted me openly flirting with another girl by the Hinman Boxes at the Hop.

That’s when—obviously—she realized why I hadn’t wanted to sleep with her: I hadn’t liked her. I hadn’t wanted to complicate my life by bedding her.

So I had turned her down.

So I got hit by this bus of bad luck.

I’m not the litigious type, which is why I’ve never bothered to sue Dartmouth, or the woman who made the false allegations against me. At the time, I didn’t have the means (and oh, how it burned then, knowing that I lacked the money to seek not mere justice, but simple fairness)—and later, very shortly after graduating from Dartmouth, when I had indeed earned more than enough money for a battalion of attorneys in matching gray flannel uniforms and bright Hermès ties as colorful as streamers, I realized that going to legal war served no purpose, except to feed revenge and bitterness.

What would a lawsuit accomplish? Would it get me back my ruined college experience? Would it make me forget misguided and mistaken shouts of “Rapist!” that I heard a time or two (or three or four or more, actually) as I went to get lunch at Thayer Dining? Would it repair my reputation, and allow me to join in all the clubs and activities I was unable to join because of this young woman’s lies? Would it take away four miserable years, and substitute four wonderful years in my memory?

No it would not.

At best, after months of litigation, I’d get a few miserable bits of money from a settlement, and—maybe—a letter of apology. And this letter would not be written by this now-grown woman out of any sense of real remorse—it would be carefully crafted by an anonymous lawyer, neither admitting nor denying responsibility, though acknowledging my “pain and suffering”.

Big fucking hurray for me.

So I did the smart thing: I put it behind me. I didn’t wallow in my “victimhood” (code for “pussy” as far as I’m concerned), nor dwell on the unfairness of the situation that had happened to me—much less allow my existence to be defined by this one trivial incident. Instead—exactly like the shrink-industry says you’re not supposed to—I ignored it, and continued with my life.

(By the way, I’m a great believer in denial—or to be more precise, a great disbeliever in dwelling on past misery. Growing up I was always told to never pick on a scab—it’ll never heal if you do. Same with misery. But then, the shrinkage industry needs people to wallow in their misery until they drown—and then pay for their rescue.)

What I didn’t realize at the time—because I was too young—and which I would slowly come to realize over the years, was what the episode taught me, about America’s elite. About the cowardice of the American elite. A moral cowardice that, I understand now, is far more significant than practically anything else that I learned at Dartmouth College.

The members of the Committee On Standards who sat in judgment of me in the Fall of 1991 were not some lofty group of my “betters”, draped in gowns and wearing the wigs of English jurists: They were my peers—run-of-the-mill students of a small liberal-arts college in New England.

But that particular group of run-of-the-mill students is exactly the sort of individual who winds up running the United States. The current Secretary of the Treasury is a Dartmouth alum—Geithner ‘83. So was the last Treasury Secretary—Paulson ‘68—as well as a whole boatload of his partners at Goldman Sachs. The current head of General Electric (Immelt ‘68), the most influential Surgeon General in American history (Koop ‘37), the current junior senator from New York (Gillibrand née Rutnik ‘88), the senior White House correspondent for one of the major networks (Tapper ‘91), the soldier/writer who’s experiences in Iraq formed the basis for a major television series on HBO (Fick ‘99)—

—all Dartmouth alums.

The kind of men and women Dartmouth enrolls and graduates are the bright men and women who find places for themselves in the gears of America society. The men and women on the COS hearing in the fall of 1991 were no different.

And they showed me how fundamentally corrupt the American leadership class really is.

There was no question that the allegations against me were lies—blatant lies. Demonstrable lies. The chair of the Committee On Standards, the Dean of the College, Lee Pelton, knew for a fact that this woman’s allegations were bullshit: Her lie about the obscene e-mails was too blatant to be explained away, as was her constantly shifting story about what she claims had happened.

Forget a perfect world—in an intermittently just world, what the members of the COS should have done was dismiss the charges against me. And if they’d really tried for a truly just world, they should have suspended or even expelled the first year woman who had accused me, for having made up her lies and her baseless allegations.

“Committee On Standards” indeed—punishment for bearing false witness is a standard. And a crucial standard at that: No society can long survive, if it allows witnesses to openly get away with perjury. The COS should have made it clear that this particular standard would be upheld.

But it wasn’t. They didn’t. Because of the recent Thomas/Hill hearings, the political vibe on campus was such that, to have expelled or suspended or even admonished the first year woman for lying would have elicited cries of “Punishing the victim!”, and so forth.

There would have been hell to pay, politically.

So there was no punishing this young woman for having lied so blatantly: It would have been too hard.

It was easier for the COS to suspend me. My “voice” was not so important as the “voices” of the various campus factions who would have howled in outrage—regardless of the facts.

And if my entire college experience was ruined by ostracism and open contempt? If this episode in my transcripts made it unlikely—not so say impossible—that I would ever be accepted at name graduate-school programs? If indeed, it made applying to my first jobs an iffy proposition?

If this episode ruined all my carefully nurtured hopes and ambitions for the life I had wanted to lead?

Because see, before I went to Dartmouth—irony of ironies—I had had political ambitions! Really! I had actually thought that I could do good for my society!

My dream was simple: Ace Dartmouth—apply to and get through Yale Law—then get involved in politics—eventually run for Congress—maybe even the Senate—and in time—patiently—I can definitely do this:

Help make America a better nation. That was my self-conscious goal. What’s more, it was an achievable goal.

But instead, I was beshitted by a sex scandal—before I’d even had the chance to run for office!

Isn’t that amusing?

Someone, somewhere must find this amusing.

I bring up this painful story to make clear why I despise the American leadership classes—and why I will most certainly have nothing to do with the American mainstream.

I make no bones about who and what I am: I am of the elite. The best and the brightest? You’re looking at him. Since I was a toddler, and without exception, I’ve always been in the top tenth of the top percentile—but not just brains, I’ve got the balls and the drive to achieve great things. I have already achieved great things—and I will no doubt achieve even greater things, in the future. Fact is, I am working on those great things now. And if that sounds monstrously arrogant—which it does—well . . . suck on it.

But for all my talent, ability and drive, I certainly have no intention of working for the betterment of American society. I might comment on that society—but safely from the shores of the mainstream, from the safety of another country altogether. I certainly won’t lift a finger to help America.

Why should I? After all, America isn’t a thing—it is a society. And the class that directs and runs that society—the class which by rights I should belong to—is corrupt to the core, its members moral cowards—

—it’s not even moral cowardice, if you think about it: It’s a self-centeredness, coupled with a lack of belief in any sort of standards. A combination that comes across as moral cowardice, but which is actually more subtle than that—and more understandable. And thus more unforgiveable. (“The more you understand, the less you forgive . . .”)

The elites have no belief in a common good, which translates into not only factional interests—the bugaboo of the writers of The Federalist papers—but also into a pernicious, monomaniacal self-interest. If there can be no commonality, then everything is of the self—exclusively.

On the other hand, the American elites most certainly do not believe in any sort of absolute standard—they deny the possibility of any standards at all, because they claim that it is impossible to know anything outside one’s immediate perceptions.

In phancy-philosophy-speak, they believe in an act utilitarianism on steroids, while prima facie dismissing even a hint of a foundationalist epistemology.

In Plain-Jane words, they believe that everything is relative—and that what is good is that which causes the most pleasure to the most people, irrespective of any rules or constraints that have to be overcome in order to get at that maximum pleasure.

Since many people at Dartmouth would have been upset if I had been found innocent—and even more people would have been upset if the lying girl had been punished—I was made a scapegoat. According to this moral calculus, the harm come to me was lesser than the harm that would have come to the Dartmouth community from the campus hullabaloo.

And the epistemic excuse—the trick of the mind—that allowed the young men and women on the COS to dismiss the obvious evidence before them? Simple: Maybe she lied, maybe she didn’t—who can ever know. Maybe what she said was true, maybe what she said was false—it’s all relative.

Right.

Relative—like Guantánamo: Chock-a-block with demonstrably innocent prisoners—but whose release would cause a shit-storm among those un-Christian pussies who insist that all Middle-Eastern brown people are by definition evil terrorists. And so they are not released, and that evil persists.

Relative—like the banksters: They raped and pillaged our financial industry—yet they will never be punished for the harm they have caused us all, because they contribute money to the candidates. And so they continue reaping their un-earned rewards, and that evil persists.

Relative—like the rise of the Security State, all done in the name of blessed “security”. And so the fundamental rights which define the American Republic are trampled, violated, left for dead in the gutter, and that evil persists.

Relative—like so much that ails the nation: We pretend that it’s all relative, because the leadership classes claim that it’s all relative—

—and the common people of America, in their self-centeredness, agree with this sophistry. Why do they agree? Because it gives them free reign to indulge in their basest impulses, their most wanton decadence. If everything is relative, then every indulgence is allowable.

But on the flip side, by these rationalizations—by these ridiculous twin claims that there is no common good, and that everything is relative—our common problems become intractable.

By denying our common good, we deny that there can be a common solution to the problems that affect us all. And by insisting that “everything is relative”, everyone’s viewpoint becomes equally correct, equally valuable, equally “worthy of being honored”—no matter how absurd or contradictory or just plain stupid or wrong it might be.

Quaint concepts like right and wrong have no place with the American elites—all that matters are the numbers. Regardless of the political divide, American elites will never do what is hard—only what is popular.

This is why the United States is falling apart today.

Lately, the political Left is so surprised about Barack Obama—how he has so easily “betrayed” the principles of the Left.

I too fell in love with Obama after the Iowa caucus—but I fell out of love just as quickly, when I saw through his veneer, which for me happened the second he disavowed his preacher, Jeremiah Wright, during the campaign for president:

“All of the statements which have been the subject of controversy are ones which I vehemently condemn.”

That’s what Obama said, when the Jeremiah Wright brouhaha blew up: Those statements Wright made which were “controversial” were the very ones Obama so earnestly tried to distance himself from.

Lies rarely upset people—it’s the truth that hurts, and gets us all riled up. Were the statements that Wright made the truth? Did he speak the truth—and make people angry precisely because they knew what he said was true?

The truth or falsehood of what Wright was saying didn’t matter to Obama—what mattered to him were the number of boos Jeremiah Wright provoked.

The political Right shouldn’t act gleeful and superior: Their candidates and standard bearers are no different. We saw this in the war in Iraq: An unjust, illegal war, brought about by lies. Yet none of the elite of the Right objected—on the contrary.

The ones who did object? They too got thrown under the bus.

And when the truth about that invasion finally came out—when the truth became too obvious to dismiss or to deny? When no weapons of mass destruction were ever found in Iraq, and therefore the reason for the war was shown to be a lie?

At best, silence.

And when it comes to torture—the most heinous crime our government has yet committed—what do we get? Tut-tut-tutting in the pages of the New York Times, but no outrage, no indictments, no prosecutions—except for the lowest servicemen who did not belong to any constituency that can protect them.

Those marginal people got thrown under the bus. Like me.

The mainstream people? They’re safe and sound—look at those evil bastards within the George W. Bush administration, including W. himself: A whole truckload of men and women who openly committed crimes that, fifty or forty or thirty, or even twenty years ago would have been considered unimaginable—and unforgiveable. Yet these men and women—criminals—are free, earning fees from lucrative contracts from their supporters both in America and abroad.

A bunch of them are Dartmouth alums.

But how can the mainstream Left point the accusatory finger at the goblins and demons of the W. Bush administration—do they point the finger at the Obama administration? Does MoveOn.org stage protest rallies against the war in Iraq anymore? The war is still going on, and last I heard, it’s still illegal—but I don’t see them staging massive rallies. Do they stage demonstrations, protesting the Obama administration’s continuation of the Bush policies with regards to torture? Do they cry indignantly that the Obama administration’s calls to carry out extra judicial executions of American citizens is wrong?

No they do not—

—and it’s not surprising. At least not to me. The good, the true, the decent is sacrificed for the sake of the numbers. For the roar of the crowd. For the anarchic rabble.

The individual has no place in this New American Society. In this new society, an individual only has worth or value by way of his position within a particular group, constituency, corporation, political side.

A human being—naked and alone—has no worth, in America.

When I was in front of the Committee On Standards in the Fall of '91, I didn’t belong to any group: I represented no one but myself. But my accuser—by virtue of her sex and her claims of victimhood—did. And so—to appease these groups—they threw me under the bus.

The young men and women on the COS in the Fall of ‘91 weren’t evil. The positions of leadership that those young men and women have grown into all across America in the twenty years since the events I have here described allow these people to wield enormous power. And I am sure that if you ask them, they will tell you—quite earnestly—that they aren’t looking to cause evil. Not deliberately, at any rate.

But they do. The members of the leadership classes in America allow evil and harm to come to others. They won’t lift a finger to save the innocent, if preventing that harm is too costly, or too unpopular with their peers.

In fact, they will never stand up to their peers and defend what is right, and true, and good.

Instead, they will acquiesce.

This is what Dartmouth taught me—it taught me so much.

Update:

Several commentators pointed out that I didn’t name the woman who made these false allegations, and that I ought to.

They’re right.

Her name was Anitra Auster-Birnbaum, from Shaker Heights, Ohio.

What has become of her, I do not know or care.

And BTW: Some commentators—new to my blog—think I’m some dopey-eyed Lefty cretin. Read here, here and here, then get back to me.

GL

Update II:

Several people have asked me to name the members of the Committee On Standards that suspended me over this bullshit.

Actually, I was not given their names. And since I was barely a month at Dartmouth when I was in front of this group, I didn't know who they were. They were strangers.

The chair, though, was Dean of the College Lee Pelton. Until recently, he was the president of Williamette College, and is now the newly appointed president of Emerson College.

Dean Pelton knew for a fact that the charges against me were baseless. He knew because, when I later took a class with him (on the XIX C. romantic novel), he told me so. I think he told me because he wanted me to like him.

If someone wants to find out who the members of the COS were who suspended me because it was easier, I suppose all you’d have to do is call up Dartmouth College and ask who the members of Committee On Standards were in the Fall 1991. After all, COS members have to campaign and get elected, in order to serve on it.

198 comments:

I greatly sympathize with happened to you. I was accused at two different time in my life of repugnant things I had nothing to do with. It took forever to get my honor back in the towns i lived in at the time. To this day, there are places I don't go alone, so I can't be accused again. All you have to be is a single, somewhat of a loner type of guy, and people create crazy ideas about you. Because of my experiences, I could care less what somebody is accused of. I want to see PROOF, he did it, before he gets held accountable for what ever it is he's accused of doing. Sorry about what happened, I can very much relate to it. And the incredible moral cowardice people are capable of, when it might cost them something to protect and validate the innocence of someone.

Gonzalo, we have never had, and never will have, a President who doesn't throw somebody under the bus to get elected. You can have an Obama who throws Wright under the bus, or you can have an Obama who is a senator.

...and this is why the more you know, the more sad you are. Because, you realize what kind of filth is at the top. Then, later, when you realize that scandalously to your reason and feel of heart, most people on the bottom do accept and like all that filth on the top just the way it is, that is when you start to get sad, as you are getting near the complete understanding.

Nothing, therefore, is worth fighting for. If only good people could somehow unite and make a plan, if only. But, then of course, there is the blessing is the curse by the other name: say we found each other, and we fought. Now what? Now we are going to have offspring, and in that offspring, there going to be the same percentage of evil as in society which we fought. Do we let them inherit our victory or do we keep it holy and kill love instead?

GL,thank you for sharing your true story. I'm so sorry that happened to you man. You should have taken all the sorry bastards involved to court!Don't let them get away with it! Your victorymight give the next lieing btch pause, and cause the council to think a little harder before they"acquiesce" the next time. Stay with us buddy, we need you! JM

So very well said. The realization that the principles of justice no longer apply is one of the most frightening things about modern society. And the fact that an ordinary citizen would have no way of righting those wrongs which may be done to them is one of the worst things of all.The same mindset in politics that you mention is very visible here in Australia as well. Our ruling Labor Party turned on the Prime Minister because he didn't have the right factional connections and replaced him with one who did. The backlash from the voters turned them into the first minority government we've had since the 1940's and the replacement PM's approval rating is abysmal. The funniest thing is, it looks like to have any chance of holding on to power at the next election, the ALP will have to give the old PM his job back... The state government here in Queensland is despised by the public, but the conservative opposition are incompetent and fighting among themselves so much that the ALP keeps getting re-elected. But rather than sort themselves out and end the behavior that the voters hate, the conservatives drafted the more popular Lord Mayor of Brisbane into the leadership in the hopes he'll win the election for them.

"Growing up I was always told to never pick on a scab—it’ll never heal if you do. Same with misery."

Good point, one I often forget to apply - so, nice to be reminded of it.

However to some degree I think you need to re-reflect on it yourself. As the episode does seem to have coloured your attitude to a country as a whole rather than just it's leadership.

Find me a country on earth that doesn't have an "elite" that aren't self serving to some extent.

I think your point on relativism is a key here and one reason that I think, whether you'd had this awful experience or not, you would not have been a "successful" politician.

Relativism tends to be key to political success. Firm principles and politics, particularly in modern politics are rarely an effective combination. Anyone who thought Obama with his background and colour got where he is in American politics by having firm principles and sticking to them was being naive. Tony Blair is another classic example, these people spend their lifes bobbing around in a sea of relativism - it's who they are. If they justify their actions to themselves at all - and I not sure they feel the need - they will do it via the device of the "big picture". To them your just collateral damage.

On this particular point I do find amusing the level of bemusement demonstrated by the MSM when dealing with Ron Paul. You can almost hear them saying to themselves - "It's almost like this guy actually believes what he's saying!"

That's what happens when men try to organize their affairs (judicial, financial, military, etc.) without the restraining influence of God's law and the morality of Jesus Christ. When the affairs of man are conducted in a moral vacuum like Dartmouth, the world is upside down where right is wrong and wrong is right. There cannot be justice in this society without God's wisdom and people who are first obedient to him and his law. Relativism is indeed the paganism of the modern era. . .

Thanks for sharing your story. You should out the name of the woman who falsely accused you so that she may defend her actions in light of time to consider them. If your story is true, (and I believe it is), then she should be held accountable or at least face the mortification she deserves.

Another excellent and moving discourse, Gonzalo. For what it's worth, the crucible you've endured has opened your eyes to a fundamental reality you might not otherwise have seen. Perhaps it is your karma to endure such a derailing to fulfill your raison d'etre.

Paddy Chayefsky came to a similar conclusion in his 1975 magnum opus, "Network:"

"What's finished is the idea that this great country is dedicated to the freedom and flourishing of every individual in it. It's the individual that's finished. It's the single, solitary human being who's finished. It's every single one of you out there who's finished. Because this is no longer a nation of independent individuals. This is a nation of two hundred odd million transistorized, deodorized, whiter- than-white, steel-belted bodies, totally unnecessary as human beings and as replaceable as piston rods."

There was another dynamic at play. You are a tall White Hispanic Catholic heterosexual male. The streams of the Black Legend run deep. The truth doesn't matter in the halls of power only greed for more power and money.

Brillance, confidence, courage, chilvarenous are spun into "he just clever but definitely agressive Hispanic macho type". Presto! The label worked 100 years earlier on the Irish. So it works again. That is how they keep intelligent confident Hispanic Catholic males out of the corridors of power in corporate America.

Fortunately a demographic hurricane is going to repeat similar stories in millions of voices that will be heard from NY to LA. There is a global Hispanic awakening via the internet. Couple that with the world going multi-polar and we have a formula for an end of the Black Legend bias in the US.

"—and the common people of America, in their self-centeredness, agree with this sophistry. Why do they agree? Because it gives them free reign to indulge in their basest impulses, their most wanton decadence. If everything is relative, then every indulgence is allowable."

I think you might be painting with too broad a brush based on the caricature you surely get from not living every day with "the common people of America".

Sure, it's easy to see Americans as fat, dumb, lazy, self-centered, indulgents. All you have to do is get your view from the media or by applying a (rightfully) jaded prism from your own experience of 20 years ago. But that's the lazy approach. And doing so from another continent could be called the cowardly approach.

Maybe you should pick that scab a little more and then realize that it's a group of individuals who wronged you as opposed to the whole of American society. You see us as you want to see us and probably as the way you have been conditioned to see us. Maybe you see us as not living up to the ideal you thought we would be. I think what you are seeing is the human condition, not a uniquely American condition. I see my friends and neighbors that I live with, work with, go to church with and raise our families with, day in and day out. They aren't perfect. They have flaws, prejudices, fears and hopes. They are similar to the people I've lived among in South America and Eastern Europe. That experience makes me believe that people are probably similar the world over. Painting one particular citizenry as uniquely depraved belies either a lack of experience, effort or honesty.

You choose to see us you do. I prefer to see us like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ME1YgDxlnt0

Thank you for writing and publishing this and sharing. No doubt you have touched a lot of people today, but in a positive way for those of us who love truth and freedom still. This is the best thing I've read in years about TRUTH. May you somehow gain strength from your experiences.

America is a nation of total cowards and control freaks at the top. Only liars get elected... and the next set of better liars and bigger spenders is just another election away. America is corrupt to the core and lost... most of us know it.

You're wrong. I live inside US, and I can attest that Gonzalo is correct. Only filth is allowed upstairs.

I have observed this every day, and I confirm Gonzalo's observations.

People on the top in United States are filthy and self-serving cowards. This is as far as human heart and courage goes. As far as their bodies, yes, they do everything possible to stay better than majority, which only confirms that they are less than human, since their bodies mean more to them than their souls (ideas, principles, loyalties, justice).

People on the bottom, do have exceptionally good examples, but very rare. Most folks on the bottom will sell their mothers to the gallows to get upstairs. May-be only one in ten is actually a human being, or even less. My experience was that it is about 1 in a hundred.

You are right, when you say that the people in US are no different than in other countries. This is true. I think there are more middle upper class humans in other countries because they usually end up leaving the USA, expatriating to other countries. This does upsets the naturally even distribution. If Gonzalo usually dwells among the upper middle class, then he probably does see many more humans abroad, and that is due to expatriation.Humans ( those who are willing to stand up to uphold the justice in the real way, such as not just by waving the flag to bomb innocents while not demanding the investigation of guilty), usually cannot survive here, nor do they find any point in trying to do so.

But yeah besides the expat factor, of course Americans are not any worse genetically that anyone else. Nor better.

I haven't done any studies, this are my personal observations, so, I may be wrong, but in any case, my observations confirm those of Gonzalo.

I was having trouble with finding the words to express a lurking feeling I had when reading this unusual/unexpected article. I very much liked the writing prespective - I like your willingness to get personal. It was almost too long of a read for me, but I got through it. Daytime is not a good time to sit and read from a computer.

Anyway, the notion of being "fedup" with American elite society for all the many reasons indicated struck me as a bit inmature. I do inmature stuff all the time and I am 50 years old. I think having a "inmature" perspective is fine and dandy. You seems to understand the situation in a context that works for you. It would not work for me.

The rhythm of "Relative" made for good reading, but not one I could get on board with given the real crust of the problem (the origin).

Prisoners, the War in Iraq etc was bit of a jump, but one I could follow. The marketing of the Iraq deal and other current autosities from your point of view may indeed be explained by what you term "numbers." That conclusion stuck me as rather brilliant. Brilliant in that I associate your rationale with the marketing, but necessarily with the more important reasons for the hard decision American leadership has been treking these day, over and over again.

Personally, in addition to a miscalculation between risk(moral/financial/outcome) and investment(morale/financial/goals/etc), I have been mostly supportive of many of the more firely topics of recent years, such as waterboarding, being in Iraq, Afganistan, etc.

Where I have argument is when American soldiers have to live by a code of engagement,that the enemy does not. When the American military does not have its hands and ammo tied with Washington politics, they have the skill to get the job down, and down well. Iraq and Afganistan could have been tied up long ago. It is politics that keeps it going.

I liked how you reasoned the motivation of your COS peers and the college administration. Freud would be proud. A tiger is a tiger, not a pet.

After reading your article, I am glad that I was a freshman at East Los Angeles Community College, of Monterey Park, CA. It was the right place for me. It could be a tough place at times, but I felt loved and cared for there. I carried that love with me through the years of many hardships that followed. Twenty years later I took home a Masters of Science degree - finally!

For Miss Darthmore Bitch, I can imagine the Karma she has or will have to content with. Most likely, she already has. We all operate with our own rationale of what is and what we are willing to accept. You have accepted yours in Chile, which I admire you for. I have my own little palace in the wheat field - just a old 2 bedroom - but for me it is a palace.

God works in mysterious ways. Sometimes crap just happens, and sometimes it is for a reason. Glad for you GL, that you are where you are. You strike me as too creative and kind to be in politics.

@ anonymous @ 3:15 for Sept 18, I have this to add...BTW, I am also anonymous @3:31 for Sept 18, AKA Kansas.

Your response tickeled me. Seems like you read Hawks5999 response with a cracked magifying glass. You sure stuck up for GL. Extra cheer is good and you make a good cheerleader.

GL seems to appreciate a passionate argument rather it agrees with his or not. Anyhow, Hawks5999 happens to have been the best so far at shedding additional light when evaluating the philosohies presented.

GL articles are famous for attracting thought. That is what makes him a brilliant, and sought after by readers.Constructive thinking leads to discovery. If I just read and followed my twins I would be a dull and unhappy sheeple.Life is art - visit the canvas often.

Anyways, Anonymous at 3:15 made me think of a sister sticking up for a brother. I hope I am not entering into a cat fight of sorts.

Excellent, excellent story, Gonzalo, maybe your best ever. What happened to you happens to thousands of others every day, and everyone is as helpless as you were. You said: "by insisting that “everything is relative”, everyone’s viewpoint becomes equally correct, equally valuable, equally “worthy of being honored”. Yes, that's the terrifying bottom line, it was the master plan of those elites all along, the omega point, it's called communism. If you want to sell poisonous shit, wrap it up in the sleek disguise of democracy, and tell everyone relentlessly that it's both delicious and good for you.

The bottom line...The elite sacrifice the weak to progress their own agenda which typically leans towards the moral majority especially when financial or political gain is involved. I did not go through your experience, but have been sacrificed by the elite class as well. It is what it is. The jaded understanding people like us walk away with alters our future. I make a very good living and will continue to do so. I also invest in PMs because I understand how the elite will eventually destroy their power base. They will sacrifice as necessary to survive at the top for one more day. Its not elite vs. the poor. It's the elite vs. everyone else. Look at what is happening to JPM Chase and Silver manipulation, look at the mortgage debacle, look at whatever scandal and resulting scape goat is sacrificed to appease the moral majority. The current power structure will fail, and another will take its place, and the cycle will repeat itself. You said it yourself the best, the brightest, the most connected...find themselves either as elites or as one of their minions.

@Tim:"A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within"

GL may have painted the common American a little too broadly but his overall sentiment is correct. So we are either seconds away from the eclipse or perhaps we've already passed that point and the Spaniards are about to beach..

Dear GL:You see corruption in the American elite but I see it in the world's elite.Ever try Cuba?How about China, Russia, Europe, Venezuela?The American people are a good people, but they have become dazed by the promises of socialism.There is a revolution coming in the US.People are beginning to wake up.

I was a woman at Dartmouth a few years earlier when they first let women in. We went through some horrible treatment by the assholes on campus that were Dartmouth Men. But I had plenty of really great men friends who weren't like that. Who treated me with respect, so you just ignored the jeering and taunting that you might hear from the balconies of the fraternities as you walked by, or a table of guys at the Thayer dining hall, because you had to believe that it wasn't them, it was the circumstance. If you fell into believing that all the guys that made fun of you really felt that way, then you became bitter and usually a lesbian. At least for a while. Gonzalo, I am sorry for what happened to you. I wish I had been on campus at the time, but by then I was mushing dogs in Alaska and didn't even have a phone or a newspaper. (see we all had to run away for a while after Dartmouth) I know you don't believe in therapy, but this is therapy, right, so just know that there are those that love you, that the pendulum swings both ways, and no matter where you're at, there you are. Love you.

Particularly because I have lived here in Hanover for 4+ years and your story resonates: this place is a shockingly in-bred mono-culture and your treatment is understandable from several aspects: in terms of the DEP (Dartmouth Eugenics Project - they turn on that green beacon not just to attract money but also 30 something alumni to return to Hanover and begin procreating) your genes were selected against with extreme prejudice; in terms of the DDF (Dartmouth Distortion Field) your viewpoints as evidenced by your posts that I have read over the past 8 months betray the ability to fearlessly think critically - Dartmouth students themselves are (to me) surprisingly earnest and not arrogant however they are fearsomely incurious and completely averse to "rocking the boat" - they are peerless in their quick discernment of the dominant pardigm/power structure and fall into lockstep expected behavioral patterns (digression I have never seen anywhere else packs of students jogging along the road - Lyme Road by the golf course - in unison as if a pack of gazelles). Dartmouth appears to be not so much a college as a finishing school for the elite masters-to-be of the late stage capitalist american empire. Their greatest weakness (as it is for many) is that they do not know what they do not know - and what they do not know or have forgotten or have had bred out of them (and something that I in my limited experience find unhealthily unique to them) is what it means to be a single solitary human - they are enamored and enslaved by a pavlovian compliance to group think and those group thoughts seem to be circumscribed by an overwhelming fear of being expelled from the group. Accordingly, they appear to constantly check themselves to determine that they are mirroring their coevals. This place (both college and town) has a distinctly "stepford" quality to it that is the opposite of the "squeaky wheel gets the oil" - instead with so many of the people here bearing the credentials of "fiat" accomplishments the "nail that sticks out gets pounded down"

I empathize with your own pounding down and congratulate you on being a bigger man than I and not giving into bitterness. I also enjoy your prose and the ideas they express and thank you for making them available for free.

As for sticking out for Gonzalo... I wasn't. Just happen to have the opinion, that supports his observations. I actually stated why...

Anyway, to your question about rules of engagement. You know why there are rules of engagement at all, right? You may have different opinion, but I am very much sure, that the reason there are rules of engagement and always had been, is to force the contender to obey the behavior standard that ensures the current top dog wins every time.

The victorious side always writes the rules that satisfy his winning strategy. Victorious side always insist that not obeying his rules results in savagery.

At a first glance, sure, it does, savagery follows. But the savagery follows simply because the rules have been set in someones favor, and therefore must be broken. Thus the one who sets the uneven rules is really the bringer of savagery, not the contender that breaks the rules.

This is exactly same grand deception as in rules set up by ruling party. Every government on earth, tries to disarm the populace to some extent that they deem achievable. This is the rule of engagement too!

Why? They do it so that they may continue to plunder the populace unchallenged! And every single government exists for this sole reason, to plunder, and nothing else.

How is a guy with a home made AK supposed to defend his country from an enemy commanding the seas, skies and the fields, an enemy who has unlimited funds not only to fund his operations but to paint the only reasonable side (the local resistance) as savages?

There is, and always was, and will be only one way, and that is to find the weak spot, and that is only possible and a direct result of not observing the rules of engagement written by the enemy for the enemy.

I was rarely wronged while I was at Dartmouth or other US schools but I was at those schools so I can understand what happened there. Probably the worst thing done to me- I suspect I graduated with lesser honor for showing up drunk and arguing with professors. However many ridiculously bad things happened to me after schools because of evil cowards and some of those injuries left permanent damage to my career and wealth. But those also caused me to get to where i ended up. My enemies are still laughing at my face but I probably never met my wife if any of those disasters did not happened. So this is a path that had been given to me and it was not my choice. Should GL succeed in his trading in the near future, the terrible incident certainly played a role in his path to success. While I feel like I should be thankful for everything, but I also trust that is not sufficient. A proper/right thing to do is to focus on what I am doing at present. But why do I still ponder So much of the past i not understand.

Wow, great article! One of your best, probably because it is so personal. What happened to you is not surprising; it happens, and has happened, everyday to many, many people the world over. Who hasn't been screwed over in one way or another? This is part of the human condition. And, this kind of behavior is not endemic to the US; it's wherever humans exist.

That cowardly, elitest behavior that you rail against is nothing more than the modern version of survival of the fittest. Regardless of our trappings, we'll always have primitive self-interest as our prime motivator. We just are incapable of rising to, and maintaining, the high ideals that we've invented.

Thanks for sharing. Have you ever seriously considered ALL the ways, trivial and profound, that your college experience has influenced you? You wouldn't be who you are without that dark time!

"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”Maybe you should add that one to your list of Aphorisms.You noble effort in avoiding a sexual encounter should have been more direct, she was aware of your timid approach, and inferred that you would not put up much of a fight, thus she was able to enact revenge for your rejection.Should you have taken the more direct approach: “I like your intellectual prowess, but honestly, I wouldn’t fuck you for practice” She would not have messed with you any further.I have noted that there exists a Facebook page for the class of 95.Undoubtedly, your experiences will permeate through the vast internet cerebellum to where these individuals’ synapses reside.Upon reading said article, it will undoubtedly spark some activity in the frontal lobes, whereupon she will be forced to reconcile her perceived recollection of events of that day in 95, and pitch them against your well written piece.Problem is with girls, is that they just cannot let it rest, and that my friend is where you now have your fun.I would not be surprised if she is reading your blog, and fuming that she now has no outlet for her frustrations, which clearly she had back in 95. I doubt she has 19000 people clicking on her daily for their enjoyment, actually, I doubt, she gets any clicks, based on your 95 noble effort in passing up a free pass.She probably is now married to some idiot banker type, unhappy, that she did not get full use of the Dartmouth Degree, and wondering if her actions have any connection to her present malaise.Never ponder on what could have been, life is too short, too complicated. We all have a destiny, and it changes dramatically at times due to forces that are working for us, the real ability comes when we can connect the dots later on, and make sense of why it happened, and enjoy it.

Gonzalo,I would never claim to be as "smart" as Gonzo, I do have experience in psych (I actually left the field b/c it is so FUBAR). The one thing that demonstrates how WISE you are is shown by ONE IMPORTANT TRAIT: You gave up RESENTMENT. If anyone reads this story, and wants to learn something that will save their life, or prevent illness, it is letting go of resentment. From past wrongs. From parents. From other family members, and on and on....That right there is why we have to use psych meds. Others prefer street drugs. No matter. Their consciences are shattered. I know. I worked it. I saw it. For many years. And it's getting worse with an entire generation of latchkey kids.

Second thing (almost as important as the first) is the ability to confront wrong without fear of ridicule or disapproval from others. In other words, not giving a damn about what others think. This generation is completely engrossed in their image, even more so than before. Facebook alter egos, for example. Everyone seems to be posing or fronting, even if it means having the newest iPhone.

Thanks for this post Gonzo. One of your best, and it has the potential not just to educate, but truly help your fellow man.

"Since I have entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided in me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they -better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it."- Woodrow Wilson

"Hell hath no fury as a woman scorned" ... Andy Shand beat me to it! Do you know what happened to her after graduation? Perhaps it would help you if you knew, and perhaps her life has not been as interesting or pleasant as she may have expected. God only knows how someone who knowingly destroys another person can live with herself, she may be a complete mess, wallowing in regret and hate.Your fan Tita

Dear GL, no one on the Left, no one on the Right, so no-one? Really? Didn't forget anyone, like, someone on the 13th floor in a hotel perhaps? .Your monstrously arrogant style is great, the story is superb and the aim at relativism perfect. Just it wouldn't be you to NOT overdo it anyway, especially when most of the readers will fall for it.. Never letting facts to prevent you from drawning the story in too much juice, be it forgeting Ron Paul here, or bashing austrian econ elsewhere, just if you know you will get away with it. .Truly of the Dartmouth hoarde, aren't we? .In this article it's kinf of a perverse perfect fit. Sort of ... Priceless. Keep it coming.

Gonzalo a great article! I loved it and I agree with you. I am only here because Elena has to "serve her time" to get her retirement. My moment of awakening was September 11, 1973. On that morning when Pinochet struck, all of a sudden the lobby at the Sheraton in Santiago was full of men in dress-green US Army Uniforms. Another group of men were there. They wore designer slacks, expensive silk shirts, and each man had a Rolex President watch. I knew these people from Vietnam; they were CIA Phoenix Program people. There were the guys who ran the political assassination programs, etc. in Vietnam. It was clear to me that the whole coup was being run from the hotel by the US government. A US Army major politely questioned me for a half hour. He took my US Navy number, etc. He told me to go to my room and wait there. I was called back down to the lobby. This polite major told me to stay in my room. He warned me that if I talked about what I had seen I would be charged with espionage and get 10 years in prison. I was one of the lucky Americans that day. Two were not lucky and they were shot in the soccer stadium

Hawk above said: "So we are either seconds away from the eclipse or perhaps we've already passed that point and the Spaniards are about to beach."

You mean Spanish tourist on Miami beach. For you know that the US is Rome. We conquered 50% of Mexico in 1845 and the rest economically with NAFTA. We conquered Central America by the 1930s.

Ever wonder why the Hispanic American population ballon from 6% to 26% of new births in 40 years? It is not by accident. The intention is to create a political union with NAFTA and CAFTA no late than 2035.

Now that the end game is clear: the world is going multi-polar, North American integration is only going to accelerate.

Think of America in 2050 as Canada today except rather than having French Canadians it will be Hispanic Americans distributed throughout the country.

Gonzalo, thank you very much for writing this article, and I am very sorry for what happened to you. I am glad to see that they have neither defeated nor destroyed you. I was fortunate enough to have never been hit by that bus, so I did get to enjoy many things about being a non-pariahed student at Dartmouth. But there were things that I saw, and some that happened to me personally (tiny things relative to your things) that made me smell a big rat, and I haven't forgotten that smell. Thanks again for writing. It's great and important.

Thanks for helping me understand the ruling class in America. I detest what they have done in Iraq and Afghanistan and we are now starting to signal with Pakistan and China. We just need to go home and resolve our own problems.

WOW .. that sucks! in other news, you are a believer in this "common good" philosophy? Really?

Obama? Really ? The only thing worse than than being an "Obama believer" is being "G.W. Bush/neoCon believer!!

Isn't your "common good" philosophy fundamentally the same as the ACT Utilitarianism of the elites you are railing against?

Your "standard" of good/evil is essentially the same as theirs. This, by definition, is elitist! When a group of folks (elites) decide what the "common good" is, and force a minority of individuals to sacrifice all or part of their lives for said "common good".

Seems like your 1 in 1000 brain tripped on the same step the other 999 stumbled upon.

Read "The Law"! ... again! And this time do not project your believes into his words.

GL, I like you have had my share of disillusions. After graduating from College; I found my self being rejected by the ruling class. Like you I'm latino. To make matters worst I was an ex-Marine. So I don't look like a person who holds a BS in Chemistry and minor in Biology. I now work for a very well known multi national company; and though I'm sought after for my opinions and knowledge; I've been delegated to a lesser position within my field of expertize. Meanwhile Idiots who fit the "frame" get the special treatment.I think what happened to you is the same old discriminatory action that has transpired for Eons. We colored people will never be "Equal" No matter our level of education! I agree with you on your description of the upper class. They are worthless, sociopathic, self-serving idiots. One more thought; I find it funny that other nationalities are viewed dirrently merely by perception.

You won't get any cheering from me on this one. You got punched in your nose and chose to lie down in defense, then have the stomach to whine about it online. If you are so "ballsy" and smart, then you put this grudge out of your mind. Sue her and piss on her grave if you have to, just bury this grudge. You know, that bus can hit HER too!

I am sure this will be deleted, but I don't care. If it is deleted at least I would know that you have read it.

You should have redressed it with the college and the woman, if just only to reestablish your reputation.

I can bet everything I have that the woman (you probably know where she is now) is way ahead of you, probably marrying another elite and is way above the cloud, while you are stuck forever in Chile, excluded from the elite who move the world for ever.

You might think you are successful, but any success you might have had would be confined in Chile, which very few people in America give recognition. The President of Chile is a billionaire, but until he became President and showed his face to the world in the 33 miner incident, very few out of Chile knew him. I am sure he has had more gratification in that incident than when he was making all these money (I don't know whether he made his money or inherited it).

I bet she is among the movers of shakers of the world, and has and will have influence on more people that you will ever have in this blog.

You could have stopped her track , but you didn't. So she is way ahead of you.

I am sure she doesn't even remember it now, while you still gripe about it after 20 years. She won, you lost.

You said you never went back to Dartmouth. That means, you are not going to be considered as an alumni, never will be treated as an equal by those who went to the same school with you, and never be accepted in the same circle. Also I am sure you got no alumni help, the 'hidden hand' which gets things done, which is the only reason people go to prestigious schools.

In other words, the only thing you got for your stay at Hanover was the name of school on the diploma to show to your folks in Chile, who wouldn't know what has happened. If they knew they would have a different opinion of you.

In fact, you were able to slip out of their radar because you went back to Chile. If you stayed in America it would have blocked your every step for the rest of your life.

For Anon September 18, 2011 10:27 PM, if you were successful and married a powerful man, you wouldn't be in this blog to begin with.

For Andy Shand, I would like to say that she is probably powerful enough to make this blog disappear if she desires.

I was with you halfway through, until you started Bush-bashing and gradually became indistinguishable from the crowd that did you wrong. Like those 1930s leftwingers who couldn't understand why Stalin was so beastly to you. America is the only country where the individual has a chance for justice: join the American debate and work to get the country back on track. If the fight is lost here, it is lost everywhere and darkness will descend on the earth for a very long time.

You actually believe the bullshit about Bush "lying us into war", that the Gitmo detainees (whose home countries won't take back) are innocent and that mild fear is "torture"? Sad -- you showed a glimmer of intelligence up to that point.

And this is why the Global Warming scam continues to be perpetrated, because to end it would require some moral courage among the lying elites who benefit from their position of status, and for whom it is simply a Tax on the Stupids who foolishly believe in it.

Let's see, incident at Dartmouth in 1991. Full-throated screed condemning an entire society in 2011. As much as you say you don't need a shrink, pal, you may want to reconsider. Long-winded, but decent writing though.

I agree with your general opinion of the US elite, and also agree with the commenter who pointed out that elites everywhere else are at least as bad or worse.

I also agree with your general opinion of psychiatrists and the shrinkage industry with the exception of those disorders amenable to chemical treatment.

I'm not so sure I agree with your alternate strategy of just sucking it up. Your piece is a bit of a broad brush that spatters vitriol somewhat wider than is justified. I suggest considering the advice of the fictional Don Corleone (taken from a non-fictional real person) that revenge is a dish best served cold. Out the woman now, including her current name and location if you can find it. Let her sue you if she dares, and counter-sue if she does. Or accept her public apology.

"When no weapons of mass destruction were ever found in Iraq, and therefore the reason for the war was shown to be a lie?"

With such lack of reasoning ability, how in the Hell did you score in the top 0.10 percentile? Where is the proof there were no WMDs which likely were moved to Syria, where is even the slightest proof any of this was known beforehand? ALL international intelligence agencies were in agreement, all liberal Democrats also. On this one you are a complete dumbass. Everything else I agree with. Regards.

Say what you will about George Bush allegedly lying us into war. I'll bet you a case of Leinenkugel's Red Lager that if you asked Bush over a cup of coffee if he'd do what he did all over again he'd reply, "Given the same facts and circumstances with which I was presented as President, and my oath of office, you're goddamn right I'd do it all over again, pard."

And that's why George Bush is, and always will be, better than either you or Obama.

Sorry about your female trouble, but ruminate on the above and spare us your cynicism.

Sorry about your experience, Gonzalo. You write your side of the story well, and I believe you.

But please re-examine the lessons you've taken away. Moral courage is RARE. It would surprise me to find that one person on your COS stood up for an unknown freshmen - a majority would have been hugely improbable.

Now you hate America from afar. (Thank God Clarence Thomas didn't take HIS ball and get on a plane - he's the finest Justice we've got.) Why? Is there more moral courage in Ecuador or Chile? In Europe? Political enthusiasms have the power to grind the angelic nature out of most men, no matter what country.

Man is a fallen creature. Lies are easier to believe than truth: "Bush's War for Oil".

Take your own advice about picking scabs, friend. A leftist political ploy against Thomas laid you low - don't let it turn you into a leftist tool.

You're right, "victim" is "loser". No lawsuit would have brought you "closure". It would have clogged up the courts and taught nobody anything new. All you missed was money.

Well, is this any worse than the guy in North (South) Dakota who was recently suspended for a year over a rape allegation by female student? The police were called in, doubted her story, tried to arrest her, she fled, but...

The school stuck to its suspension.

There is no justice for men our system. Look at Tiger Woods. He plays around, his gold digger wife beats him on the head with a golf club, divorces him, ruins his golf game (head trauma) and his endorsements, and takes his money and his children.

Imagine, say, if Serena Williams were married to a gold digger, and the entire scenario was played out with genders reversed. The only question would be how many years in jail her ex-husband would get for beating her and ruining her tennis game.

The fact is this-- there are few passions more powerful than narcissistic rage. It is powerful, but also completely destructive. Lot's of people "got screwed" in this world. There are innocent people all over the world sitting in prisons. That doesn't change your situation, or the unfairness of it, but... what matters is what you choose to do with it.

I've been there too, friend. And, I had to just let the anger go, and move on. Picking at the scabs of the past lead to nothing but a bigger wound in your life.

Honestly, after your tale of personal woe you derailed as your rant went further. You besmirched this woman (rightly) for her lying but then cling desperately to lies about recent history just to satisfy your elite ego.

Two steps forward, five back.

Perhaps you should step out of your echo chamber and start learning a bit more about the 'common' Americans...and how they're vastly superior to those Dartmouth produces.

Sorry to hear about your tragic experience, but get a grip, dude. It's long past time to move on.

And the lesson you supposedly learned at Dartmouth is nothing more than self-defeating, post-modern nihilism. Bull crap whining about all the awful people in places of authority, holding back the noble little guy.

Grow up, brush the chip off your shoulder, and life will start to seem a whole lot better.

After all, given that so many in the world are denied a basic education, do you really expect anyone to feel sorry for you because you were forced to graduate Ivy League Dartmouth in 5 years instead of 4?

Naming her will do no good, since she is probably married/divorced to somebody with a fancy, and probably recognizable, last name.

Somebody said living well is the best revenge. Well, no amount of 'living well' will bring you to her level, ever. One can live like a king in Santiago, but nobody in the inner circle of power will even raise an eyebrow. Remember, the billionaire president of Chile was a nobody in the world until the San Jose mine collapsed.

She will be going to parties, with congressfolks and other important movers and shakers, while Gonzalo has went down the level of Nicole Foss, who is not someone taken seriously by people who create and lead opinions.

Face it. Your life as a global elite has ended on the day you got your suspension. It is very unlikely that your 15,000 blog followers will include anyone who can change world opinion, while her circle of friends can kill this blog at once if they desire.

I really don't see what your beef is. William Gibson describes cyberspace as a "consensual hallucination" - so is leftism, to which you apparently subscribe. Just as communism in the USSR punished people who were problems, the leftists at Dartmouth punished you. Because you were a problem.

Wonder if there isn't more backstory untold by you, that would illustrate how you exacerbated your own plight. You sound like the sort of bigmouth who does not know how to handle a woman. If I were to bet I would bet that somewhere along the line, in Chirac's words, you missed a good opportunity to shut up. BTW, what does "hooked up" mean? Did you screw or not? Sodomy? Was she jilted or just refused seconds?

And just like the good Russkis who have always cried "If only the Little Father/Stalin/Putin knew!" you lay down for it. You couldn't see that the people who shared your values would inevitably come to this. This is what leftists do.

But you just want your comrades to "remember you as a good Communist" like Bukharin and Beria and all the other rats. It didn't burn those corrupt values out of you - look at you crapping on Bush & Co. for no good reason (perhaps we can avoid rehashing the whole GWOT and you can allow me to extend the better arguments for the war, which as a big Dartmouth brain I imagine you can concede exist at least theoretically, or if you want we can do that all over again), chiefly to show the leftists whose approval you crave that you're on their side.

Some lone wolf you are. You're just a dog who's been kicked out of the house, and you hope that if you can only catch one wolf, they'll let you back in the house again.

Conservatives would never have done this to you. At Virginia Tech or Notre Dame or, hell, probably Harvard, you would have had a tlast a better shot at a fair trial. Frankly, even at NYU I was, so gossip got back to me, accused by a chick with whom my roommates caught me "hooking up" of some nebulous sex crime, and "what did I have to say about it?"

My answer: Not a thing. And it all went away. I bet you screwed up somehow. Bet the rent. If a broad couldn't screw a white male at NYU, a broad couldn't have screwed a Hispanic male (a protected class, believe it or not, and apparently you don't) at Darmouth without he screwed himself. Maybe you weren't that smart.

So again, it's the people who are all "right on!" about your antiwar shtick, who are just the ones who would sacrifice you to the girl because of whatever PC/diversity math it is that you are whining about.

I dunno, maybe I should read other posts of yours to get a better read on you. Maybe I am being unfair. But as far as I can see to this point, as to your leaving, I say "stay not on the order of your going" and "don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out." Sadly, in the old days, you absenting yourself from our fair shores would effectively relieve us of your braying; however, in the age of the Internet, this is no longer the case.

The kicker is you begging for money. I thought you had made zillions in some no doubt noble fashion or other "very shortly after leaving Dartmouth." What, did you blow it on coke and hookers? Or buying into the Chilean hierarchy? You should be PayPal-ing your readers.

Nah, I don't see how you will be missed. Good luck though. I'm sure Chile is dying for what Dartmouth alums can bring to the table.

For someone who's pissed off about people who support demonstrably false assertions you certainly don't hesitate to toss them around.

Gitmo is full of "demonstrably innocent" men? Really? I'd love to see your evidence.

The Iraq war, the one that freed tens of millions from the abuse of a horrific tyrant, was "illegal"... how, exactly? I mean, seeing how it was authorized by the entire US Congress AND the UN what law did it break? And although it was PARTIALLY based on faulty intelligence that's much, much different than being based on a lie.

And, as so many others have pointed out, it's kind of silly to judge 300 million people based on the actions of a few dozen individuals and then claim to have gotten on with your life and put it behind you. You're protesting a little too much, I think.

First off, I'd suggest GL do see a psychologist at least to talk about it with someone professional. He seems way to smart to assign the motives of a few 19-yr olds to a nation of 310m people.

Secondly, it is funny how over the past year with the release of the WikiLeaks documents showing not only that Iraq had WMD, but also moved many of them into Syria with Russian help, never seem to get mentioned by the 'Bush Lied!' wishcasters:

'During that time, former Iraqi General Georges Sada, Saddam's top commander, detailed the transfers of Iraq's WMD. "There [were] weapons of mass destruction gone out from Iraq to Syria, and they must be found and returned to safe hands," Mr. Sada said. "I am confident they were taken over."

The documents showed that US troops continued to find chemical weapons and labs for years after the invasion, including remnants of Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons arsenal -- most of which had been destroyed following the Gulf War.

...Also in 2004, troops discovered a chemical lab in a house in Fallujah during a battle with insurgents. A chemical cache was also found in the city.

And, of course, SH's top nuclear scientists testified that he planned to restart their weaponized nukes program as soon as possible. And several people and intelligence agencies have said/shown that Iraq *did* try to buy uranium from Niger.

General Tommy Franks and former CENTCOM commander has said that he saw persuasive evidence that Irraq’s WMD went to Syria.

He said “We saw all kinds of suspicious activity which...meant for certain that weapons were being moved into Syria.”

Franks made the comments after the former second-in-command of CENTCOM, General Michael DeLong, said that the intelligence had reported Iraq moved its WMDs to Syria, Lebanon and possibly Iran.

Don Bordenkircher, who served as the national director of jail and prison operations in Iraq for two years, told me that he spoke to about 40 Iraqis, either military personnel or civilians assigned to the military, who talked about the WMDs going to Syria and Lebanon, with some claiming they were actually involved. Their stories matched and were not contradictory, he said...

I also asked Duelfer if he was aware of the intelligence provided by the Ukrainians and other sources that the Russians were in Iraq helping to cleanse the country shortly before the invasion.... The Ukrainians provided all the details of the Russian effort, including the dates and locations of meetings to plan the intervention and even the names of the Russian Spetsnaz officers involved. Shaw also worked with a British source that ran an intelligence network in the region and provided substantiation and additional details.

The former head of Romanian intelligence during the Cold War, Ion Pacepa, has provided supporting testimony. He says that he had personal knowledge of a Soviet plan called “Operation Sarindar” where the Russians would cleanse a rogue state ally of any traces of illicit activity if threatened with Western attack.

John Loftus, a former Justice Department prosecutor known for his wide-ranging contacts in the intelligence community, said in an interview we did that “every senior member of a Western, European or Asian intelligence service whom I have ever met all agree that the Russians moved the last of the WMDs out of Iraq in the last few months before the war.”.... General James Clapper, President Obama’s pick to replace Dennis Blair as director of national intelligence, has previously stated his belief that the weapons went to Syria and took part in the meetings organized by Shaw."

Dear Gonzalo, I remember you from the fall of '91 (I believe we were in Phil 1 together). And I remember hearing that you had been suspended for sexual harassment. I don't remember seeing you on campus after that. I can understand wanting to put this behind you, but I sure as hell wish that you'd written this up in, say, the Dartmouth Review closer to the time of the events in question. (Did COS make you sign a confidentiality clause, under pain of further suspension or expulsion?) No, going public would likely not have gotten you an apology, money, or an expunged record, but public shaming of Dean Pelton and the COS might have made the likelihood of this happening to someone else diminish just a bit.

I should think that anyone that meets you would see you as that scared and now scarred young boy that Lady Justice kicked in the nuts. You are deserving of sympathy and maybe even pity.

Additionally, your towering intellect has left you handicapped: you fail to see that this society, as warped as it can be is amazingly resilient and self-correcting. You don't like how long the pendulum swings, too bad, suck it up little man.

BTW, I did want to empathize, having gone through a remarkably similar situation, but I didn't blame "America," or our piss poor leaders, I blamed the scummy bitch who was too stupid to pass a respiratory licensure exam.

Apparently, she finally got someone to tap that pussy. I wonder what her husband and children will have to say about all this when they are confronted with all this due to the lack of impermanance on the Internet.

This reminds me of all my Libertarian friends who got screwed by one government dept, and who now are Puritans: I could create a govt. 99.9% pure and it would not suffice for them.

As for illegal wars: 85% of Iraqis are still glad Hussein is dead, as am I.

Which is more than you've ever done, but I thank you for this article. It's a marvelous demonstration of leftist myopia. Fannie Mae, a GSA, run by Walter Mondale's ex-campaign manager, did more than any bank to destroy the housing market and set the fraudulent tone, all with Congressional Democratic connivance, but you blame Wall Street.

Dartmouth and the Left abused you. But aside from this personal experience, you haven't learned much.

You claim to have incontrovertible proof of your innocence, yet you admit you were alone in a room with this woman. You also make outlandish claims about how everyone from Dartmouth are corrupt assholes and then assert you are great. Whether it is your intention or not, you come off as both an asshole and a liar. My guess is that the student counsel was playing it safe--they didn't believe her, but also saw that you had a huge chip on your shoulder and were lying about being alone which, by your own admission, you were.

And, Walt, the President of Chile is less powerful than a junior senator from Wyoming or so. The President of Chile has influence in Chile, and that's it. One inch away from the Chilean border, he is nothing.

Before the mine collapse, nobody really knew or cared about who was the President of Chile, a billionaire or not. Who knows, or cares about, the name of the richest man of Uzbekistan here?

That mine incident was the event which put him into the world map, and only after that the world knew who he was.

As far as the world which does matter is concerned, in other words among the opinion of those who actually do matter,

Dude, the outcome of the Iraq war was a huge victory for anyone with any decency in Iraq.

It came at a big price for America.

Decent Iraquis owe members of the American armed forces an enormous debt. But being human beings, they will not show any gratitude.

Lots of people have explained to you why you are a dumbass. Rather than taking time to repeat their well stated arguments, I will suggest that you read their posts again. Maybe you will learn something.

This missive is worthless because you did not and do not have the courage to name your accuser and the members of the Committee who wronged you. These left wing ideolouges have paid no price for what they did to you, why should they not do it to someone else. Your response was (and is) one of cowardice, nothing else. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

The comments from the beginning to end reveal a full range of PC/liberal types (including a few identifying with those from that class of 95 or friends of her)to people who still believe in Bush/etc. So continue to make roundabout arguments to mislead the direction or just state your faith in the great mission accomplished in Iraq(lovely country now right?). And the ROW point at GL's shortcoming as a person or need for help. Should the paper runs more than 300 word, someone please post a three-sentence summary so that we won't get more entertainment from reading the comments.

My interest is if/when they do acquiesce, is it done knowingly or unknowingly. Or is it more often just a group thinking? Or do we just blame the lack of power or neglect of the judge figure who should have enforced acceptable outcomes? Or was it really a mistake by bunch of immature people who didnot know they were incompetent to be in the room? Outside of textbooks, people aren't rational.

Holy Crap. Lotta comments. But the jist of it is, I think you kinda need help. Can't condemn a whole country on account of a no fair incident. Didn't your Dad ever tell you that life's not fair? Besides, America may be screwed, but we still beat all as far as alternatives. Admit it, don't you miss something that used to be available to you here in America that you can't get or experience in Chile? We rock, man. C'mon back. There's more opportunity here. And no one's gonna look at your 20 year old Dartmouth transcript. Get real.

Time for you to get on with your life. You didn't have counsel for your hearing, and you chose not to do anything except be bitter. Maybe it's time to forgive and let the anger turn to something useful.

Your narrative reads like the Book of Job. Our founding father's efforts, realized in the Constitution, anticipated the flawed nature of humankind. Thus they gave us a nation of laws, separation of powers, and accountability. The advent of the great regulatory State, commencing with the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, has created the class of federal bureaucrats upon which Dartmouth has modeled their administration. You probably wonder what would have happened if you had been experienced enough to retain competent council...and been able to pay for it or find someone pro bono. So do I. I would like to believe that you would have been better treated by the courts. And that would be my advice to anyone in similar circumstances.

Whatever you went through, it is nowhere near as bad as what Bert Riddick went through. Falsely named a father, and then assigned a default judgment against his wages, he paid child support for 13 years. He proved in court that he wasn't the father, but it was irrelevant to the State of CA. So his real family had to live at subsistence level as CA kept stealing his wages. What he went through is far worse.

C'mon, Anonymous (10:57PM 9/20 poster), your measure of men is childish. A Johns Hopkins-trained doc beats a Chilean novelist? They both sound financially comfortable - the rest is up to wisdom; the wisdom to choose happiness, not victimhood or hate.

The junior Senator from Wyoming? Sure, the US Senate's the most luxurious club in the world, full of "legislators" who never have to write or read a law. What has their political power to do with their worth, their wisdom, their happiness?

Man does not live by bread alone, sorry. Partying with "congressfolks" sounds appalling - playing Nintendo would be infinitely preferable, and I dislike games.

Chile sounds lovely, thanks to Pinochet. Their wine is often tasty. I wouldn't want to be president, but a billion dollars and a few good friends in Santiago would give me no cause to repine.

You sound like one of those high school kids who, when asked his ambitions, says he wants to be famous. Good luck with that. Oh, and thanks for telling me the Saudis have oil.

Excellent piece. I have not experienced the personal tragedy you went through, but I see validation of every point you made each time I return to the U.S. to visit relatives ... good, wellbred, oblivious relatives who wonder why I spout such venom about the big brother police state, the friendly fascist motherland, the f'ing land of the unfree and home of the slave that the U.S. has transmogrified itself into in a scant few decades of this tyranny of the elite and elite wannabes.

I left the U.S. in 2004 and worked for several years in international finance in a major Asian city. I am still here, having traded my job as an enabler for the Goldman Sachs, JP Morgans, BOAs and various other vampiric cults of wealth for something nearer and dearer to my heart. In 2 years I will be eligible for permanent resident status in my new home, and plan to take it.

Fuck those people who act like emigrating from the Fourth Reich is an act of cowardice, or that speaking truth to fools is only permissible from Amerikan soil. When they demonstrate any success whatsoever in turning out the oligarchic elite who have made a once great land into their own private fiefdom, I might listen to what they have to say. Until then, I just see them as a bunch of cowards, rationalizing away the death of liberty and turning the other butt cheek to take another big one up the whazoo.

Keep lighting matches, and maybe one day we can all celebrate the conflagration that results. Best!

For many generations now the "American" elite have admired foreign leaders: Mussolini, Lenin, Stalin, Castro, Mao, etc. The elite may mention Lincoln or Washington, but they don't look the Founding Fathers, they don't think like the Founding Fathers, and they don't act like the Founding Fathers. They boast of it and hang Maoist "Christmas" ornaments from their trees. They abandoned their God and morality for vile ideologies and behaviors: socialism, homosexuality, and feminism. The "American" elite aren't American and haven't been for some time. And now they have destroyed the American people as well. The country is still called "America" and its people are called "Americans," but they aren't. You learned this hard way and early on. Thanks for sharing. Welcome to the present. And future.

A Johns Hopkins doctor's value is recognized around the world. A Chilean novelist's value is , ahem, very little outside of Chile's borders, and virtually nothing outside of Spanish speaking world.

Aren't you aware that Borges translated a lot of the things he wrote himself to English so he would be recognized in the Anglophone world?

>The junior Senator from Wyoming? Sure, the US Senate's the most luxurious club in the world, full of "legislators" who never have to write or read a law. What has their political power to do with their worth, their wisdom, their happiness?

Nothing. However, in almost all countries in the world, a junior senator from a small US state will be treated better than the head of state from most countries in the Southern hemisphere, since the junior senator can arrange connections to people who actually matter.

It's like the British Raj; the Indian princelings might have been richer than anybody in England, but they sent their kids to London to make friends and connections to the sons of country squires who might become an MP to decide the fate of their fiefdoms.

>Chile sounds lovely, thanks to Pinochet. Their wine is often tasty. I wouldn't want to be president, but a billion dollars and a few good friends in Santiago would give me no cause to repine.

Yours is a good story, but I can beat it. When I applied for a position in the Canadian House of Commons I was told at the interview stage by the Director of Human Resources that she was considering my claim of having six years at major Canadian universities to be invalid! This happened well over two decades ago, but my protestations of this madness have failed to cause the House administration to revoke her pronouncement nullifying my degrees. Even two Speakers have rejected my pleas. You say that you have moved on from the injustice you suffered. It's somewhat harder to "move on" from a declaration by a high official of your nation's Parliament that your university education is a fiction, especially when no one higher in authority will overrule her.

It's time for people to realize just how arbitrary and corrupt public administrations have become. This same parliamentary control clique tried to rob me of about a third of my pension when I retired under duress (I was already a long-term House employee when I applied for the position in question; oddly, no objection to my c.v. had been lodged when I got my earlier job with the House administration!). These managers should be known for what they are: go-fers and agents of criminal elements who dictate from behind the scene.

Anon: September 21, 2011 4:23 AM Oh yay the Jews the Jews the Jews. Thanks for that. Her maiden name is Auster and she's from Ohio, so I'm guessing Not Jewish. The fact that Mr. Birnbaum is, I suppose, legally blind does not mean that the Zionist Occupied Government is implicated in this one.

Howard: All people who use the term of art "Amerika" and its forms "Amerikan," etc., are thereby labeled fools. Thanks for putting that right out there so nobody needs to consider you further.

BTW, you will become a CITIZEN of Singapore or HK or wherever you ended up, when? I'm thinking... the Fifth of Never? Good luck getting into a criminal sexual mixup with a real citizen, whitey!

And whoever, oh, Anon (September 20, 2011 11:53 PM) : I don't think I'm the last defender of the Bush (43) Administration but if I'm the only one on this thread, I'll wear it. I don't see how that makes me a PC liberal, though.

Yeah, I think the overthrow of Saddam's Iraq was justified on several bases, which we can go round and round on if you like but which GL might regret for reasons of space. Meanwhile, though, IIRC our host was crapping on the Afghanistan effort too. You could nitpick details - I would have preferred to spread plague - but what? They were the Michael Moore kite-flyers and we should have left them alone after 9/11?

What are you or he saying exactly? Are you one of the nuke-Pak, nuke-Mecca types? (We could discuss that, LOL, but I don't think that would have exactly avoided the political shitstorm that GWB incurred.)

Okay, GL, I'll go read your other posts before judging you. Just to be fair. That and I'm looking forward to see how you walk back the cat on this one.

No. I'm glad you're prolife - I agree - but there are plenty of prolife (generally Catholic) leftists. Then how could you favor Barack "don't want my slut daughters being punished with babies just because they wouldn't do anal" over McCain-Palin?

Not a leftist? What about Obama fooled you? What has (had) he got to offer anybody but a leftist? Apparently, an effective con. So are you a leftist or a mark?

As for the mortgage thing, not sure how that provides conservative bona fides or otherwise labels you.

there are always negative consequences of sin. The sin of false accusation can be very painful and damaging. The sin that precipitated this cascade of events was your choice to engage in pre-marital sex. Your choice to go public with the woman's name continues this cycle of hurtful actions all stemming from your initial choice to have pre-marital sex. Time to forgive and move on.

I am actually enraged by the treatment you received by the Dartmouth COS. No person should ever be faced with the onus of "you proved you are innocent, but the mob says you're guilty, so you're guilty." You were unquestionably wronged, like some of my friends in college, and deserve at least the recompense of an apology, even if you choose not to pursue it, or would be extrememly unlikely to receive it should you have pursued it.

That said...

First, I take great exception to your application of blanket verdict of guilt against all of the U.S. for what a handful of elite did to you. Might I remind you that you, who I doubt would blanch at the term "elitist," attended an elite school, and was accused and found guilty by an elite of that institution, and who now pride yourself on your ex-pat status (noting that this status did not occur until 2002, per your wiki page), and from what I can see, have spent as much time as possible in elite enclaves, though I have only your wiki info to go on), have taken that rarified experience to accuse the entirety of U.S. culture and politics. In all of that I hear "Damn the factfinding, I've got a grievance to serve!" Does that sound eerily like your experience at Dartmouth?

- You say you got over this incident, indeed, that you survived by 'putting it behind you'. The strength of your current words belie that statement. That you can recall with such clarity and passion the wrong which was done to you some 20 years ago tells any listener that you did not 'put it behind you', but rather that this incident was a strong motivator and shaping influence on your future.

- In many respects, what you've illustrated is the conflict inherent in our sentient species' very existence - we can conceptualise that which we can't achieve, no matter how hard we try. Purveyors of each and every religion (AKA morality code) have understood that no matter how hard we strive to be perfect, we'll never succeed. We will never be that morally steadfast and honest creature you seek. You know this, and so do most other people.

- You single out America's ruling elites as being flawed in many ways. True enough. You'll have no argument from me on that. But America's ruling elites are distinguishable from ruling elites around the world only in the superficialities of life and society. The desire to boss others around for one's own purposes is, as nearly as I can tell after a good long life, a universal human trait and therefore not constrained to one nation or people. In many regards, America's ruling elites are little different than the Medieval feudal lords, the Roman oligarchs, the Islamic Caliphate, or the Egyptian Pharaonic class. As soon as power over others becomes a person's chief aim, all semblance of morality quickly exits stage left in favour of pragmatic self-justification.

-Lastly, as I read your essay, I couldn't help but hear in my mind the words of that modern philosopher William Patrick Corgan Jr. -

Second, to your accusations against the U.S. (I confess to being focussed primarily on your accusations vs. the Americen Right, of which I am one):

Guantánamo: Chock-a-block with demonstrably innocent prisoners

Notwithstanding Guantanamo was initially a prisoner OF WAR camp, not a criminal prison (hoping an elite will comprehend the difference in those two things), that statement begs you to show evidence, both of the chock-a-block number and the demonstrable nature of their innocence. Keep in mind that, as of Nov. 2005 (the most recent numbers I could find), 358 of 505 inmates had had Administrative Board Hearings, and 3% of those petitions were granted, and were released (the closest I would believe to a finding of innocence). I will grant that there are innocent people caught up in the great sweep in Afghanistan, but in no way would I consider 3% "chock-a-block." YMMV.

Iraq: An unjust, illegal war, brought about by lies.

Let's start with your definition of "unjust" and "illegal" - was the 1990 Gulf War unjust or illegal? Iraq under Hussein had invaded another country (Kuwait)that he alone contended was part of Iraq.

In the interim between Gulf War I and Gulf War II were at least 14 U.N. resolutions that Hussein violated. These resolutions were also violations of the cease-fire between Iraq and the U.S. How many cease-fire violations should a nation have before the other nation(s) are allowed to return to belligerent status?

It matters not under international law that the above was not understood by the general public before re-initiation of hostilities, only that the resolutions existed, and were violated. Even one violation is enough to justify re-initiatio of hostilities, which was absolutely demonstrable - UNSC Res. 687, and the denial of weapons inspectors of access to Iraqi weapons sites, and the eventual expulsion of those inspectors.

As to the WMD accusations, it is true that the U.S. did not find many WMDs, and did not trumpet those they did find (which they did). However, the U.S.' error was not merely understandable, but agrreed upon by nearly every knowledgable party, including:

France, Germany, U.K., Russia, U.S. President Bill Clinton, U.S. Vice President Al Gore, Senators Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and many others.( Side joke: When asked how France was so certain that Iraq had WMDs, Pres. Chirac stated, "Well, we checked hte receipts...")

You cannot possibly mean illegal to mean "pursuant to U.N. mandate," as that would mean every war fought (not just by the U.S.) since Korea was illegal.

fundamental rights which define the American Republic are trampled, violated, left for dead in the gutter

Please name ONE fundamental right abridged in any way in the name of "security." Before you start, let me haed you off on the most common retort to this challenge: The USA PATRIOT Act did not create any new governmental permissions to "abridge" fundamental rights. It merely extended existing police powers affecting various criminal enterprises to terrorism. Nor did the Bush admin's use of "wiretaps" exceed existing authority, in part because the taps issued were reviewed by a Federal judge, and were only for calls entering or leaving the U.S.

I would never deny that Americans can be self-centered, and cna exhibit moral cowardice - only that we are, at worst, no worse than any other world citizen, and under most circumstances, better than average. FWIW.

God bless you and grant you justice in all of this. (I think I remember your case--wasn't it reported by John Stossel?)

The intensive and massive corruption of our elites used to surprise me, but no longer. It pervades everything--whatever one wishes to call "it"--political correctness, relativism, c.y.a. utilitarianism. Your reflections on their character and ideology are some of the most insightful which I have read. They deserve a wide readership.

I also like the fact that you link the moral cowardice/corruption of the academics with that of Bushite neocons. They are indeed cut from the same cloth, no matter what your ungracious detractors here may say.

Just take comfort from this: at the end of time, at the last judgment, all of these phonies will exposed. All these shining academics resplendent in their robes, and their collaborating students, will be shown up for the cowardly people they were.

Let us hope that they repent for their actions and make amends to you.

What perturbs me the most about such a story is when he admits that he is IN SPITE OF THIS DISGUSTING DEFAMATION, when he then admits that he himself was a "Leftist" voter.Apparently he is totally unaware of the the roots of this insane "Political" correctness wave namely the very same "Left" side of the political spectrum for whom he then takes sides in elections of the PTB.And this viewpoint coming from a life-long Jazz musician and world traveler and someone who has really seen it all, including Communist counties before the fall of the wall.The combination of wannabe "Elitists" and leftist dogma always makes for catastrophe and injustice.Oh yeah, don't forget that all of his detractors on the panel that "Convicted" him were also "Leftists" and supporters of the disease of PCness.

I am sorry to inform you that US seems to be the best guy in the neighborhood in this respect. So you can safely extend all this rant against all humankind, otherwise an impression remains that you think somewhere else the situation is better.

BTW, I had a different impression about illegality of Iraq war: if I remember correctly, the will of the people was very unambiguous at that time, supported by many other countries and UN etc., etc.. Would you be able to successfully prove this illegality in the court? Or this is just fashionable elite smalltalk based on cowardice, out of the fear to be frowned upon in some "circles", and these words mean nothing except "Iamlikeyou", some required pheromones of a member of the group "speaking against the power"? Is it a result of a deep research, with facts, proofs, laws citations? I suspect not.

Your judges in Dartmouth took this root because they knew that nobody will look into the heart of the matter, everyone will just believe the sentence if it confirms their worldview. You turned out to be a good student.

I admit I was wrong. I incorrectly assumed that she would be married to an "Idiot Banker Type" Au contraire, she did good and married what appears on paper to be a very talented individual. Although not wishing to be seen as uncaring (I really am) she would have done better marrying an Oral Surgeon than a /Rheumatology and Neurology Doctor. I know, I know, its mean of me to comment about someone’s looks, hell who am I to judge. I am British, the state of our incisor/molars are legendary!!Anyway, GL, you need to put this issue to bed, which is something you failed to do in that dorm room so many years ago.Did you think by writing about your experiences on here, would not garner some attention towards revealing the identity of the female accuser. I find it inconceivable that she would not read your post and some of the responses on here and contemplate her actions back then. She alone has to deal with that, you have to deal with yours.I agree with you on the Elite in the USA and for that matter any country, most have commented on here on the wars in Iraq, but have neither fought or got any closer to these places than a map on the wall. Look forward to your next post; let’s hope it’s as good as this one.“Each honest calling, each walk of life, has its own elite, its own aristocracy based on excellence of performance.”Maybe a post about America's Status Anxiety…Its huge..

You simply don't understand. There are some things which will never be put to bed, like losing one's status like bob klinck above.

No matter how much one might try, one just can't , and won't, rebuild one's life to what was before that incident.

She is set to become a famous researcher, with maybe a Nobel prize in the future, while he will be forever stuck in the little corner of South America, griping on his life and debating only with the likes of Nicole Foss.

No matter how much money he might have or how well he might be living, he will never reach her level or be in her circle of friends. Her circle of friends mostly have 'meat' ; few readers of this blog have any kind of 'meat'.

When she dies her obit will be in the NY times and she will be mourned by at least all the university staff, and it will merit an entry in the Dartmouth records too. When he dies, it is very likely that only the members of his family and a few Chileans virtually unknown out of the Andean nation will attend the funeral.

That's the difference she created, and the people who want to make this matter to rest wants to maintain, something which will never be overcome!

It is unlikely that she will read this blog; far more important things to do, like attending parties with the town's medical establishment.

But if this post somehow hinders her future career, or even robs her Nobel down the road, at least he would have had his revenge.

Yeah, great. Stop her Nobel-winning lifesaving work so GL feels better. Do you listen to yourself? No, the only justice GL could have is if she got raped in fact. And nobody wants that, right? Right? No, the only true justice waits for her in the afterlife. A religious man would be content with that. And would feel better.

Can you answer this question, "What would Stephen, the first martyr, would have felt when he saw the 'apostle' Paul in heaven?"

After all Paul was there when Stephen was being stoned, but his 'head count' was much bigger than Stephen.

Paul's writings are read by billions, while Stephen is virtually unknown.

My guess is that if god had any mercy on Stephen, he would have never let Stephen see Paul by putting them in the opposite corners of the heaven.

Or, how would Uriah (who was not Jewish but apparently believed in god) would have felt when King David went to Heaven? At least Matthew had the grace to put Uriah's name in Jesus' geneology so Uriah wouldn't be forgotten.

What happened in this world has to be resolved in this world; no one knows the rules of afterlife, and I wouldn't take chances for it.

Who cares about being famous, wealthy, well connected, awards, friends etc. etc.

Ask Steve Jobs what really matter; I am sure you would not get the answer you were hoping for.At the end of the day the only thing that really matters is your health, be that mental or physical, because without health we are finished on this planet, then no amount of money, fame, friends, and awards will help.

As they say: "At the end of the game both the King and the pawn go back in the box"

First and foremost, you nailed her at last. If what you claim is true, she did you a great injustice and deserves being revealed. Great injustices are only forgotten by wimps.

Secondly, you generate great posts. I agree with Hawk and Redhawk above (though not as agressively) on the issue of Americans being a pretty decent lot. Hawk's youtube link above is exactly what every patriot should watch. The average American is still capable of greatness.

Thirdly, there is a real a-hole posting his ignorance of the world outside the US. This idiot a-hole has no idea how large, beautiful and awesome Chile and LatAm are. The Iberians took the best of the Americas and present day US. They left the rest as leftovers when they were good and ready (often 300 years after laying claim to the land).

Keep writing!

As to the posting above dismissing an after life and a day of judgment because no one has ever come back: It all comes down to whether you are fortunate enough to be a spiritual person. If you are, there is no doubt there is a God and an afterlife.

Reading the comments from the Bushistas here made my gorge rise more than the injustice that GL experienced at Dartmouth. There really is no chance of their awakening and redemption, nor anyone of true moral courage who would believe them if they pretended to.

I wasn't naive enough to fall for Obama; the last straw for me, politically, was Kerry taking a dive in 2004. It was good to finally overcome the illusion that politicians are anything but scum.

As for the parasite and taxfeeder class worldwide, you know them by what they produce that is of value: nothing.

Wow. I make no bones about who and what I am: I am of the elite. The best and the brightest? You’re looking at him. Since I was a toddler, and without exception, I’ve always been in the top tenth of the top percentile—but not just brains, I’ve got the balls and the drive to achieve great things. I have already achieved great things—and I will no doubt achieve even greater things, in the future. Fact is, I am working on those great things now. And if that sounds monstrously arrogant—which it does—well . . . suck on it.

My experience has been a little different than yours.

I don't measure success via the strata on a bell curve. Or who has the biggest car or house. Or even-who has the biggest ego.

I am truly happy. That's the standard. Truly happy people don't write thesis papers on how they were victimized even when they were victimized. I see some work here to do, class of 95. I call it awareness and humility. http://realemotionalfreedom.blogspot.com/

To truly understand the enduring (if fading) appeal of the World Economic Forum, you have to go back to high school. One thing we learn in high school is that human beings, like wolves and fish and most other lower life forms, travel in packs. We also learn that there is a pecking order to those packs. And in every high school there is a group of cool kids who enhance their status simply by hanging out with one another. In my school, we hung out each morning along a certain wall in the front hall. (Yes, I was a cool kid in high school. Of a sort. The nerdy, artsy sort with an Isro.)

And if you think Davos is about anything other than status-seeking-behavior, then you have read too many of the press releases of the overly-earnest Swiss gnomes who put the meeting together. They describe themselves as being "committed to improving the state of the world." They do have a variety of bloviatapaloozas during the course of the event at which the improvement of the globe is debated. But, of course, most of the people there share a common background -- the emerging world, women and poor people are hugely under-represented. So you have to conclude that what they really mean is that they are committed to improving the state of those aspects of the world that are important to CEOs and politicians and the journalists who share the appetizers with them at the receptions in the Belvedere Hotel -- where the real work gets done in the small Alpine village that for a few days each year is the center of the trans-Atlantic establishment.

But watch the people at Davos and you see what's really up. It's not deal-making. That almost never happens there. It's networking, which is the professional way of saying: connecting with the kids who have it going on. The appeal, however, of the entire endeavor is fading for several reasons, all associated with the inadequacy of Davos as a networking forum. First, it's pretty uncool to hop on the corporate jet just to schmooze on a piste. Second, the cool kids of the 21st Century -- such as the Chinese -- are in short-supply (although the organizers are working like crazy to fix that). Finally, the event has grown so big, even the cool kids can't find each other in the mix. As Steve Case, founder of AOL, once told me while standing at the bar in the middle of the hubbub of the main conference center: "You always feel like you are in the wrong place in Davos, like there is some better meeting going on somewhere in one of the hotels that you really ought to be at. Like the real Davos is happening in secret somewhere."

Which indeed it is, on every street corner, in every home, everywhere the common man a woman is present.

Steve Jobs could easily attend Davos, he built the World’s most profitable company, and for $500K he could easily afford the Strategic Partner Status. But that’s how he made Apple so successful, by being normal, and abstaining from the classic example of being viewed as different than the so called elite.

You should read the text of his Commencement address: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html?view=print

After reading this my thoughts on strategic default by the middle class on bloated mortgages is no longer in question. Fuck'em, let BofA burn. The thought that they profit from our integrity makes me more nauseous than I can properly convey.

Chile and LatAm might be large, but like the giant swarth of Siberia which has very little strategic value, LatAm plays very little role about how the world is going.

An elite in a LatAm country is nothing; in fact virtually all LatAm elites are educated in Northern Hemisphere. The few Nobel science winners LatAm produced all studied in European or American universities, and even the lit winners spent extensive time in Northern Hemisphere.

Face it. Her social status is waaaaay ahead of his. He will never catch up, because the people she associates with have higher social status worldwide than all of the readers of this blog combined.

And, regarding Steve Jobs, don't change the subject. What I was saying is that Jobs is not in the same league of people who rule the world, the 'elites' in the main article.

I read his commencement speech, but socially, he is less superior than quite a few of the students who had to endure this college dropout with absolutely zero connections which do matter.

Jobs won't be welcome in high-powered dinners in the Beltway for example, even if he were paying, simply because he is 'not in the same league'.

Reread F Scott Fitzgerald. He knew how American elites worked. When he said "the rich is different from you and us", he was not talking about Jay Gatsby or Steve Jobs.

I already said few people who do matter will attend Jobs' funeral, and his legacy will not outlive him for too long.

He is in the same league with Andrew Carnegie or his sidekick Henry Frick, who were very rich but were treated like pariahs by the upper class. Both of them only gained respectability very late in their lives thru the Carnegie Foundation and the Frick Collection. Carnegie basically built a library in every town of America; that's why his name still survives, plus the Carnegie-Mellon Univ.

So far, Jobs has failed to do any of the things Carnegie and Frick had done to get the 'tolerance' of people who do matter.

A jones hopkins md will be recognized by the people who do matter, but a Chilean based in that country, no matter how wealthy he might be, will just be treated like arab sheiks who only have money and nothing else.

There is an Anonymous a-hole above who continues to write BS like: "Chile and LatAm might be large, but like the giant swarth of Siberia which has very little strategic value"

LatAm has 350% more natural resources than the US. These resources are easily accessible by two oceans. The day the US losses LatAm it is toast. Today, China has already replaced the US as the biggest trading partner in the Southern Cone.

Another idiot quote "An elite in a LatAm country is nothing;" The elite from LatAm are extremely wealthy, well connected and often intermarried with the elite in the US and Europe. They as the elite have power that an idiot peasant like yourself never see.

Your make believe world is falling apart. The world is going multi-polar and you are still stuck in 1993.

By the way, your hostility towards Gonzalo is clearly personal. Did he knock up someone you were hoping for?

I agree with Mateo - that Anon is growing increasingly wearisome with its repetitive posts marginalizing Chile (a proxy for GL) and lionizing the elite. Methinks Anon doth protest-post too much, tell me is that you Anitra?

P.S. I am glad to see that Anon's typing has improved and that now that its indignation has subsided a bit it appears to be proofing its posts before submitting them!

The Ivy League universities serve two basic fundamental functions, besides acting as a foundation of sorts for the ruling elite. One is to help create the underclass of psychopaths and sociopaths servants-to-be, one of whom you met, the other is to perpetuate the real on-going education of the ruling elite class. These murderers and overlords plan, not for decades, but for hundreds and maybe even thousands of years ahead. Hence the need for these ivies.

America is runned by psychopaths and sociopaths whom we used to call "bullies" in elementary school. It is not a coincidence or accident that this is the fact on the ground. That's why the proper title of the EEUU should be "the United States of Death, Disease, and Destruction."

All these LatAm "well connected and often intermarried with the elite in the US and Europe" are , for all practical purposes,Americans and Europeans who only go to the country they were born in very special occasions.

And, frankly speaking, they seem to be very underrepresented among the elites of the world compared to their wealth, and are noticeably absent in decision-making processes which affect billions.

The world may seem to be going multi-polar, but the actual show is run by the class of people educated in fancy universities of the US and Europe, whose membership Gonzalo was permanently disqualified by the incident mentioned in this post.

Which comes back to the original point... someone based in LatAm with no connections in the Northern Hemisphere, no matter how wealthy he might be, is socially behind the woman mentioned in this blog and her class of friends.

Why would anyone want to be part of the "elite"?Steve Jobs proved that you don't have to be part of the "elite" to make it big.And he has the benefit of not having to associate with those parasites.Elite pussy is no better nor worse than non elite pussy.So, who cares?Except that these parasites control governments all over the world.The solution is to shrink government powers by 99%.

Hi GL,The main problem is that the (lack of) morals and ethics spreads down from the "Elite" and becomes, over time, the accepted standards of behaviour for all. The only crime in the western culture is "getting caught".I have had the privilege of working and living in Arabia, Africa, Eastern Europe and western Europe (Belgium & UK), I have worked for and with a number of Americans and American companies. The ethics of the general population in Arabia, Africa, Eastern Europe is far above those of the west.Now I can hear the "Howls" from God's chosen people in the Land of the Free, but only because the arrogance and insularity of (the vast majority of) Americans knows no bounds.You watch Fox news and CNN (or for the really "aware" [the newly outed] Al-jazeera) and believe that the pap they feed you is reality. "84% of Iraqis are glad Saddam is gone" are you stupid or just ignorant. 1.4 million Iraqis are dead, 4 - 5 million are refugees or displaced, you were told by the CIA that all WMDs had been stopped and destroyed in the 1990s, but that did not fit the rhetoric needed for war.What was done to Fallujah will go down in infamy.We read and study Paine, Jefferson, Thoreau, Twain, Emerson and we see the greatest document devised by Man, The Constitution, and then we look at USA. We see a president who says it is just a goddamned piece of paper, another who presents blatant and flawed forgeries as "his" documents, these are their ethics, these are their actions, for all the world to see. You do not understand the difference between justified pride and arrogance.You say that you are not all like that. Well the ones that I have met in working 10 years with and for Americans are, at all levels. You would screw anyone and everyone for a dollar. You do not see anything morally wrong in the way that GL was treated, because the majority would do (have done) the same as the girl or the COS. You say "Tough S**t, Move on", where is the outrage.It is not about whining or payback, it is about morality, about ethics. You go to church, but instead of "Love thy neighbour as thyself", you believe in "Kill them all, God will know his own".Dartmouth has spread to Bodunk. Just so you know, UK and Belgium are the same.Which is why we are now expats in Africa.

If one wants to peddle hardware in Peoria, one doesn't have to become an elite. But if one wants to be among those who rule the world, command respect from virtually everyone on the planet and do whatever you feel like to do so, one has to become one; it's like an admission ticket to a very exclusive club.

And, elite pussy might not be different from ordinary pussy, but coming out from there does make a HUGE difference in anyone's life. It opens doors which are closed to most ordinary mortals.

One just doesn't know what a powerful elite is like, until one experiences it.

Steve Jobs was never an elite. Tiger Woods ()a Stanford grad) almost became one, but his prole taste of woman which he could never get rid of got the best of him.

In the Navy what we said about sexual harassment charges is that you are guilty until proven innocent, and then you're still guilty. But let me tell you one story that may give you hope. As a midshipman at the US Naval Academy in the late 80's, I was entrusted with the training of a young lady (plebe-freshman) who had wrongly accused her squad leader of sexual harassment during plebe summer. She was very cocky about the fact that she could accuse anybody of anything and get away with it. I spent an entire semester working on this person--and I have to say that I truly gave her a chance to prove and redeem herself. When she figured out that I would not let up on her, she accused me of sexual harassment through her congressman. There was a big investigation and they determined that I was equally tough on all plebes if they weren't meeting standards. I had to play detective with this young lady to the point of getting myself put on academic probation. I finally caught her in so many documented lies that she was forced to resign, in lieu of being kicked out. My grades were a small price to pay for the sanctity of the institution.

During my 25 years in the US Navy, I served with many fantastic women. The system is stacked against men when a sexual harassment claim is made. Those mentally ill women who make false claims are a cancer that deserve to be rooted out of organizations and run out of town in shame.

"But if one wants to be among those who rule the world, command respect from virtually everyone on the planet and do whatever you feel like to do so, one has to become one; it's like an admission ticket to a very exclusive club.

One just doesn't know what a powerful elite is like, until one experiences it."

Command respect from everyone on the planet? LOL. You have no idea what total contempt you useless parasitic pieces of shit are held in. No doubt there are some truly stupid people who "respect" a phony image due to ignorance and they themselves being shallow, but intelligent aware people with hearts and souls know how truly useless you are and wouldn't associate with you unless they had to, and would take a bath afterwards.

Elite my ass. You are parasitic scum, phony from the get-go. Like your political whores and media filth, you would never be invited to a gathering with real people. Dream on.

I certainly don't believe that you're a "dopey-eyed Lefty cretin". I disagree with you strongly on many of the things you argue as wrongs but agree with you just as strongly on the fact that allowing a wrong to happen in order to get along and avoid the hard decisions is despicable..

The Elites don't give any thought with people with 'hearts and souls'. They just don't exist in the elites' schemes. A non-entity. a nonissue.

Have you read Mr. Cheney's Victory Lap? That's how they think and act. And Cheney is quite low in the pecking order of the Elites, being from Wyoming and educated there.

>you would never be invited to a gathering with real people.

Elites simply don't bother with such kind of stuff. They only hang out with themselves, protected by good bodyguards and served by loyal servants, whose social status are directly related to their boss's.

They are protected, and even if they get into trouble they will get out one way or another through their power and connections, a luxury not too many 'real people ' will enjoy.

Reread F Scott Fitzgerald. Reread Paul Fussell. The "Over the Clouds" don't even think about 'real people'. They certainly would have no time to deal wth this blog or its 15,000 followers; for the Elites, the 15k followers simply DO NOT EXIST.

The woman in this article is in that league. I can't say the same about Lira; as long as he is in Chile he will be an Elite, but I doubt the rest of the world will treat him the same way.

Not ordinary resident. Johns Hopkins is like the Harvard or Oxford of Medical School, with alumni(read: support network) all around the medical Establishment.

A Johns Hopkins Doctor is a Johns Hopkins Doctor either at Tampa or at Timbuktu. A Chilean investor, with a dark record permanently behind his name, won't be recognized in anywhere which doesn't speak Spanish.

No matter what rhetoric or sophistry is used, she is ahead of him socially. She will enjoy all of the support of her alumni and 'network' from her illustrious schools, which he will never enjoy.

Oye compadre, all the elites are the same everywhere. This is not an American problem. En Chile es igual huevon! Power corrupts, it's that simple. If Chile were the current world empire, they'd be doing the same type of things in search of more power. Truth has absolutely no room in the halls of power. And, sadly, most people are just as corruptible, if given the opportunity for a position of power, as the current american elites. So, what is the solution? With the nearing collapse of capitalism, people are beginning to look for answers outside of the current paradigm. And the answer is in ethics. To remain on higher ground always, independent of the consequences. Gonzalo, don't play their game of vindication. Stay in compassion and love and you will be free of their world, it is absolutely true! Sounds like lunacy and wishful thinking, but things are changing rapidly and paradigms can shift very rapidly in this explosive global community. This is not religion, it is common sense. Cooperation has always worked much better than competition, a simple fact. Cuidate! This small essay I wrote explains the underlying forces at work: http://www.thenewcovenantforthenewera.com/uploads/The_Institution.pdf

Lol at "fanged and fugly she-beast." She does have some scary choppers alright!

Interesting how the comments show the modern ignorant political mindset where people on the "right" or "left" (there's always only the either-or) of the political spectrum are assumed to have particular views, and regardless of what they actually say, must be (grabs rubber mallet) ...forced (WHACK!) ...to fit (WHACK!) ...in the correct pigeonhole (WHACK!! WHACK!!) ...so the reader can feel they understand where they belong.

Gonzalo,Talk about life imitating art. A "Real Life of Alejandro Mayta" chapter indeed! I went to a college like yours, where there were a lot of privileged people. Government and economics were popular majors. It wasn't uncommon to hear people say, "Ordinary people can't understand this/don't know what's best for them/can't govern themselves." These people obviously were not aware that even people without college degrees have eyes in their head. Even people who have not read as many books as they have, have the capacity to detect injustice or inequality. Isn't intelligence throughout the human population--whether it is used for good or bad, whether it is cultivated or not---part of the human condition?

Ironically, did these students actually read many books to refine their fine minds? I remember students bragging about how they could get away with doing as little as possible: in preparing for the test, so-and-so spent only two hours studying for the test, and aced a C+. Another person spent hours studying, and only got a B-. No appreciation for due diligence. No ethical approach to learning. At moments such as those, the burden of being the "educated ones most capable of governing" conveniently slipped out of their fine minds. Unless being a special person of innate ability implies you need not refine your mind; it's fine as it is.

Recently I had lunch with a college classmate who told me a jaw-dropping story. It would make your jaw drop to hear the identity of the person, but as this is hearsay, it may not be appropriate to identify him. Nonetheless, the son of someone like one of the people you mentioned above was a first-year student the year you left Dartmouth. My friend lived down the hall from him. Because that student had a roommate, he would pull the phone out into the hall to talk to his father. It was impossible for my friend not to overhear the first-year's conversations with his father. The student told his father, in great detail, about all the conquests he had made. (I don't think I could ever do that. But who am I, coming from some working class family?) He also mentioned to his father that some of his bed partners were interested in joining his father's firm. My friend concluded, "These are the morals of the upper class?!"

My friend is a very ethical person. In a very non-Vargas Llosa sort of way, he had to keep his sexuality hidden and locked away--perhaps from himself as well as everyone else--until we were in our 30s. He would have been ostracized and marginalized had his brought himself out in the open in college. I was awkward, probably because I didn't meet our college "Facebook" standards, also because I wasn't wealthy. So neither he nor I were "normal" and "mainstreamed" on campus. Our sense of self and identity did not flourish on campus. But we were very interested in the things were were studying.

You attempted to assert your boundaries, and when that did not conform to your accuser's idea of what they should be, you were ostracized. At least you did not violate your own boundaries, selling yourself out to something and someone you did not really want.

By the way, I think that laws and rules against sexual harassment and abuse are very important. But you make a critical point, that the law must be used ethically. I wouldn't be surprised if that elite first-year I described hadn't actually committed some form of sexual harassment, with his father's consent and encouragement.

I want to make an additional point about your Dartmouth experience. When you cross boundaries, your status changes dramatically. Of course, the "boundary" metaphor can be applied in many ways. But I'm talking specifically now about international ones. Let me give you an example, a dramatic one. While I was working in China, I knew someone from Mali, whose father was high in the government. A picture of his father with the President of the United States hung on the wall in his family's house, he told me. Before he had come to China, he had spent many years studying in North Korea. While I am sure his living conditions were far superior to those of ordinary people, I heard that when ordinary people walked by him, they covered their eyes, an overt way of refusing to recognize the presence of a person from Africa. Surely, that must have been a difficult adjustment.

Perhaps you had "wrongly" assumed a certain ability to assert yourself at Dartmouth, as you might have done back in your home country. In other words, you may initially have not been aware that your socio-cultural status had dramatically changed on that campus. After all, you were qualified enough, talented enough to have been accepted at Dartmouth. Maybe you thought you could just be yourself. People like me and my friend stayed withdrawn, remaining within our own marginal spaces on campus. We had grown up here in the US; we already knew we belonged on the margins. Sadly, but somewhat safely, we were "aware" of our place.

Draw a picture of what students at Dartmouth might think or know or assume about someone from Chile, and compare that to the real picture that you know of your life. Then compare all that to the picture Dartmouth students have of the life of the son of a wealthy American. If they thought you were the son of a wealthy American, and you had rejected that woman's advances, she would probably have just accepted it for what it was, and then maybe try to be your friend. Or she'd just keep trying. Throwing herself at the money.

If a young women had brought charges against the son of the wealthy American (e.g.,the one I described above, assuming that actual harassment had taken place), the father would likely turn the case against the accuser, because he's used to manipulating the law to benefit himself, his family, and his firm. That's purely hypothetical, but easy to imagine, somewhat ironically, in light of your story about false accusations of sexual harassment.

"Perhaps you had "wrongly" assumed a certain ability to assert yourself at Dartmouth, as you might have done back in your home country. In other words, you may initially have not been aware that your socio-cultural status had dramatically changed on that campus. After all, you were qualified enough, talented enough to have been accepted at Dartmouth. Maybe you thought you could just be yourself. People like me and my friend stayed withdrawn, remaining within our own marginal spaces on campus. We had grown up here in the US; we already knew we belonged on the margins. Sadly, but somewhat safely, we were "aware" of our place."

Don't worry, Just read up on Irish Catholics history in the US. We and the Irish share an ancient ancestor who fought everybody and beat the crap out of the Roman for 200 years. Surrender to enslavement is for pussies. Now my amigo, read up on the last 2500 years of Hispanic History and you will see we are the Irish on Steroid.

Sit back and observed the power of the emerging Hispanic American behemoth. We will take care of you in the future, it is our way.

Very good essay. I agree, with one important reservation: not all of the animated human bodies you see have a soul. That is the missing piece in your otherwise clear understanding. A web search for "Political Ponerology" will help.

Anon, I don't know why you keep arguing that she is more elite than he. What difference does that make at all in the world? I guarantee you she is not happy. No one who comes from that kind of darkness that could do what she did to another human being could possibly be happy. It eats away at her, and now that she is exposed, the cancer will become visible to all who see her. She cannot hide from her own deeds, nor can she box the shadows of the invasive internet. Her own life is her just reward for her evil deeds. (as I assure you, wrongfully accusing Mr. Lira was not her first nor her last encounter with the dark side.) You know her yourself, right? You know she is not happy, and no amount of socializing with the beautiful people (which she doesn't because she is pregnant and is a doctor and has to work WAY too hard to pay off all those loans) will allow her to escape from herself. Until she comes forward to face her own demons, only then will she be able to glimpse the sunlight again, if indeed she ever saw it to begin with. One wonders after all, what would possess someone at the tender age of 18 or 19 to effectively ruin another person's life. That's some dark shit there, my friend. Good luck with her.

Bravo. My only disappointment is that you removed the LatAm bigot idiot's posting. The ignorance of history is incredible. You should have left the some of them on. You have cojones, your websight is not the Huffington Post. The 1st amendment is critical.

This sight is a cultural bridge facilitating the emerging Anglo-Hispanic Empire of the 21st Century. Of course it would be a Chilean doing website like this. Overachievers and Anglophiles if I observed correctly from my visit to Chile. You finally revealed yourself. It is good know that Chile is a solid friend whose counsel we should reflect upon.

Now as to the enemies of America who monitor this sight, please bear in mind that Americans are often underestimated. Their compassion is confused for weakness, their happy nature is viewed as immaturity, their diversity is critically misinterpreted as weakness.

As the shit hits the global fan over the next decade it is important that our enemies don't misjudge our willingness fight. You will also be surprised how many friends we have in LatAm. I consider Gonzalo a patriot in many ways.

1) It is possible that she comes from a background which could have afforded the education to become a doctor

2) Nobody has mentioned her husband. I assume he is fairly successful guy, even more than her

3) Someone already mentioned she is probably not remembering anything. People in her class just don't think about bad deeds which was done to class below their own. I guess she is fairly happy. Although nobody can really tell except the person herself, I have seen people from similar backgrounds who think about nothing about their former sins done to people inferior to them.

4) The social circle of her and her husband will be more productive, more glamorous and more far-reaching than anything Gonzalo will make, which will be confined in Chile and have very little effect outside of there.

m_astera, Thanks for the compliment. I have to disagree, though... all human beings have a soul, no matter how evil they might appear to be. We all come from the same source; it's where we all come from and where we are all going. But, since our specie as a whole has deviated from the source, we create institutions to hide behind their facade. My Theory of Human Spiritual Development might clear this up a bit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4v7U9KpgE8But, anyway, I wish you the best m_astera

This was a great post, as sadly true as it is. I, too, was one of those "destined for greatness" brainiacs who was accepted to more than a few Ivy Leagues. I ended up at the ILR school at Cornell. My first semester, which I thought would be filled with long and lofty conversations about real world issues, was instead spent watching my classmates grovel and bribe the TAs for higher or good grades. It sickened me. I found more "truth" and nobility, as it were, a year later working as a waitress back in the Back Bay of Boston.

Hope you got back to the school, finished the ed, and rejoin the route for fast track.

Some people don't 'fit in', but in most cases the education is finished, since the presitige never dies.

Here is a semiautobiographial novel by a Yale - Georgetown lawyer who didn't 'fit in' and griped about her lot. But her credentials made this book possible.

http://www.amazon.com/Free-Food-Millionaires-Min-Jin/dp/0446581089

Gonzalo once wrote about getting books published, but people like the person above have less trouble attracting agents or getting books published, another great perk of having an impeccable educational pedigree.

Wow, what a story of yours.But I have to say if you really, very shortly after graduating, had enough money for a lengthy lawsuit, you should have sued Dartmouth. Then let your lawyers fight it out and don't feel too bothered by it. It would have been a shot across the bow for the college. That wouldn't have helped you anymore, but the next person in the same situation.If you now realize their cowardice, that would have been one more reason to sue: make them fear the law more than peer pressure - at least next time.And so harsh that sounds or even is: you also should reflect on your own cowardice, masked as "getting over with it." (Obama come to mind?)But okay, hindsight is 20/20, and I'm not implying I never acted cowardly in my life.

Good for you, you didn't lose your drive - maybe because it happened at a late stage in your life. Brainwise in the top percentile myself, I had my experience when I was 7 (outside the US), and another lighter one at 14, and that made me mostly become a "fly under the radar" type...

It's Relative - in other words the moral weak are void of principles."Everyone’s viewpoint becomes equally correct" - exactly!!!Yes, the NYT has become a bunch of hypocrites, especially in the commentary section, the exception maybe Gretchen Morgenson.I am positively stunned by your essay. Nobody has ever put it more concisely together, but covered so many important topics!Please keep on.

Even after the French Revolution, the nobility never learned anything and did the same thing. If the Count of Chambord had heirs, France would be a kingdom today, complete with the nobles at Versailles.

In America, there are no "Second Chances." Once out, out forever. Like Gonzalo, who had to go back to his native land, which is kind of 'dead' in America.

She will be forever ahead of him, since she will enjoy connections and privileges he will never ever enjoy.

I think not only Alex but everyone reading here who has not at least taken a look at Political Ponerology is missing the biggest piece of the puzzle. I'm not saying read the book, I'm saying do a web search for that term and see where it leads you.

The only "Evil" thing of the people featured in political ponerology is, ahem, that they are more evolved than others.

Since they are more evolved, and have overcome the system of guilt and other 'human' feelings in order to increase their 'inclusive fitness', they are more likely to have power, exclude others from it, and survive any crisis by their power and ruthlessness.

They will survive, overcome and win over the hoi polloi, and the hoi polloi will have to kneel them for ever, whether they like it or not.

She wronged you, and the University breached it's duty of good faith and fair dealing with you, but didn't fight. Nor did you truly move beyond. Are elites often selfish cowards? Probably a fair assertion. Is that cowardic wrapped in the same arrogance and certainty you display? Also probably fair. What distinguishes you, the victim, with them, the violates? Not simplistic ideology - you almost certainly share that. Nor undeserved slef righteousness, passing sweeping judgment on others. No, the distinction is that they won, and you lost, and you lost due to your unwillingness to fight - yet at the sometime you have not made peace with that business decision. You need spiritual or psychological help; and you may need to sue or, if it is too late, to press for your justice. This rant against the almighty elites, while having some truth to it regarding the human condition, is in the end just the rant of an impotent man to afraid to take real action, nor willing to take ownership of the choices caused by his fears, so he rails against world - knowing that this railing is all sound and fury, impacting nothing.

Bang! Hit the Nail on the head Sir. The Virtue that once made this country Stand on its own two feet is now that of the "crazy wack job". If you Analyze the facts and form your own opinion the masses try to knock you off your feet. If its uncomfortable to act with honor and seek truth then honor and truth get kicked out the window so the charade can continue. They won that battle but there is an interesting phenomenon that happens when ever the masses get stirred up, they quickly forget their "beliefs" and start trampling each other. Once the stampede begins it is every man for themselves. The Individuals are the ones sitting at the top of the canyon looking on as the herd falls apart.

In nature the herds are Prey and the Packs and Loners are The Hunters. Although its been like that for thousands of years, The hunters are still demonized. The Hunters response to this was, still is and will always be - I am a Hunter I do not follow others and prefer that others do not follow me, If they choose to follow me they can join my pack but they better be as skilled a hunter as I. If you are not watch and learn or go join the herd. Furthermore I know your intentions before you know your intentions. Take that as you will "if that sounds monstrously arrogant—which it does—well . . . suck on it.

Well she's ugly as hell and anorexic.uuuggh (a genius thou)...And you're no Brad Pitt either...I'm glad I studied in the US when this PC bs wasn't around..I was the spic of the class but they called me the south american stud for a reason ;-)In any case, if you really want to clean your name send this story to Alex Jones. This way he can connect the dots between eugenics, gardasil, the power elite, the dumb down of society and racial bias and she'll be forced to give a public response on the subject. You'll multiply your audience from 15 k to 3 million...Anyway, I think you shouldn't have named her publicly. Is not the gentleman thing to do...No es de caballeros y sabes? me cago en la élite, ellos mueren de la misma forma que el resto

Yours is an interesting story, but not a unique one. I would encourage you to reconsider your conclusions. It is not that America, or American Society is flawed, but that humanity is flawed. If you were falsely accused, abandoned, and crucified, so was another first. That is the lesson.

As for your accuser, her life is not without torment. This story will follow her forever, and she will be trapped by it, until she seeks forgiveness.

The only difference between you and me, Gonzalo, is that YOU believed in the American Bullshyt 'Dream' until it screwed you personally, only THEN did you open your eyes.

*I* on the other hand learned from objectively observing how the U.S. MURDERS, RAPES, INVADES, LIES, CHEATS, DEFRAUDS and TORTURES others. And I didn't need to go to Dartmouth or Harvard to learn that. In fact, HAD I gone to Dartmouth or Harvard I would have probably NEVER learnt these truths.

I like America.But there is little doubt in post Christian America that the secular democratic traditions are in a worsening shape.Gonzalo's post shows him to be a little vain and not moving on. Gonzalo your bitterness towards this woman doesn't square with your Catholicism. ( judge not etc but the observation stands)The readers of this blog have managed to bird walk into many irrelevancies. Do we really want to explore the personality of the key person of this event so long ago? And speculate without much evidence how she is doing?Gonzalo's past injustice is a canvas for his brilliant analysis. Yes the decision making of the elites is based on numbers. No you don't count: it is the group status of your identity that is key. Ultimately the unfolding of America is a negative spiritual event.While I expect America to come roaring back, the sight of Dick Cheney defending torture on a book tour --which included the most popular TV personalities-- points out that we have gone a long way down. America is hanging on to past moral superiority which has little to do with today.We have gone so far down that we are left with the question "What is important?"I feel sorry for those without faith because today there isn't an alternate system of morality in the secular world.

Gonzalo, you are right to condemn the cowards on the COS who wronged you, but I can assure you that even if they had found you not guilty on all counts, you would have suffered the same ostracism. The stain comes from the accusation itself. I know because it happened to my son. He was in 8th grade and was accused of rape by an ex-girlfriend who was angry that he broke up with her. Even though her story was ridiculous on it's face (without going into the gory details, what she described was physically impossible), he got arrested and went to trial. The judge found him not guilty and said it never should have come to trial. While we are thankful he didn't suffer the legal consequence (although it cost us $40K in legal fees - and no, we aren't rich), the reality is he spent his high school years under the cloud of that accusation and he experienced many of the same things you did.

Life isn't fair. And some wrongs can never really be righted. You move on as best you can. Good luck to you, sir.

Doesn't matter. If the name is cleared, sooner or later the ostracism goes away, and after 5 years or so it is forgotten.

The Duke 3, accused by corrupt prosector Nifong, all left the school. One graduated during the trial and the other two transferred to comparable schools in the North and didn't go back to Duke.

But , although the one who graduated has severed all connections to his former life and is still keeping a low profile, they seem to be doing fine. At least they will have another chance because they were found not guilty.

Gonzalo will forever be branded as a sexual harasser, and he will never be able to leave Chile.That's the main difference!

And people just don't move on from such kind of things. Never. I am sure Chris' son would be better off by having a clean reputation than being branded a rapist for life.

Speaking for post-Christian America (well not actually as I kinda abound in your sense)...there was this little thing called the Inquisition, perhaps it rings a bell? So I'm not positive that pre-post-Christian America, or the West, or the world, was all touchy-feely like you imply. I don't see Christianity as a guarantee against shall we say unkindness. And I daresay if it were your ox being gored, you'd do what you had to do and regret it later.

The naive mistake you made was thinking everyone thinks like you. I make the same mistake all the time. The world is not as we see it or want it to be, it's much different. People aren't rational nor just. They are self serving and self centered, just like you were as a freshman at Dartmouth. Sounds like you wouldn't have made much of a lawyer if you couldn't defend yourself given such obvious contradictions and evidence. And another thing, since you're a movie buff, you should know "Scent of a Woman" came out in 1992. And if Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade, played by Al Pacino, could defend a student at an elite school in the face of false accusations, then you should have found better representation in the form of another legitimate and respected source, like another Dean.

A lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client.

Don't be so bitter. We all get screwed at some point. We have to learn from our pain. Next time don't swim with sharks when you're a minnow.

I know well what you endured, Gonzalo, and I am sorry for you my friend. I endured a similar PC ass pounding back in the early 1990s in which I, a white male, was charged with racial harrassment, placed on probation at my workplace for an extended period of time and ordered to undergo psychiatric evaluation in order to determine why I was so hostile to non-whites, all for telling a black guy to fuck off (I told the little prick to fuck off because I was fed up with continually being taunted as a racist because of my ethnic background). And the funniest part is that I was then, and still am, married to a black woman (so much for the charge of being a racist). Pretty incredible shit, wouldn't you agree? Yes, I know all about the moral cowardice and relativism of which you speak, and my attitude now is pretty much of looking out for myself and piss on everyone else. Whether that's the right attitude or lesson to take away, I don't know. All I do know is that I don't really give a shit about practically everything or anyone in this world (which is actually a mellow attitude compared to how I used to feel).

You are a chauvinist, which perhaps shouldn't affect how much credibility I give your story but it does. So a victim is a 'pussy'? And you, of course, have balls. Your choice of words betrays your attitudes to women and power.

About the psych profession dragging out issues - I wanted to get a restraining order against my ex-wife because after two warnings she continued to harass me through my parents. The counselor talked me out and I accept where I now am with this issue. That was a cheap solution, and it gave me something court could not provide - release from the control of my ex-wife.

This generation is completely engrossed in their image, even more so than before. Facebook alter egos, for example. Everyone seems to be posing or fronting, even if it means having the newest iPhone. iPhone 5 Unlock